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Harry Styles aside, individual artistic journeys of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the public imagination. They usually follow predictable patterns – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least a track featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and disjointed melange of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her first solo tour proves, not everything on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she declares, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that the original group are back – but the fact that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that was released just a month ago makes you wonder. And should it occur, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester tonight and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.