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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least a track including a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the visual and auditory experience of someone enthusiastically passing the years before the inevitable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, among them loudly underlining that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – based on tonight’s crowd, the most popular item on the merchandise stall is a fan emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with electronic pair Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her debut 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 exactly the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of Madonna’s Frozen that transforms into a musical compilation of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

However, there exists additional where Angel Of My Dreams came from. The song Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with verses that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mum: it has a fabulous melody, early 80s syndrums, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she states at a certain moment, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the manner such individual artistic pursuits end – the hostility towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to an album 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 realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade plays the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK until 23 October.