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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – often a pursuit at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an American rapper, or a move into mature Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, among them emphatically stating that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the songs she has chosen to create is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and disjointed melange of grand emotional pop songs, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her initial individual concert series proves, not every song on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache combines an Abba-esque chorus with verses that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs combined with metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her LGBTQ+ fanbase, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to declare that Little Mix are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a month ago makes you wonder. And should it occur, the closing Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester this evening and is touring the UK until 23 October.