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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” Radio 2-friendly polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

It’s a state of affairs that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the factory-produced music business – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her initial individual concert series demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, powered by exactly the Motown musical snippet the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that offer a borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she announces at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a official undergarment to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers end – the hostility towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be word-perfect as they sing along to a record that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And should it occur, the final Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Jade's individual musical path is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is touring the UK through October 23rd.