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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least a track including a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed 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 loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – judging by the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her collaboration 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 usual.

A Superb Debut

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jolting and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as her debut single: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by exactly the Supremes sample its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache melds an Abba-esque chorus with verses that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, early 80s syndrums, and crashing rock guitar combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by electroclash, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, cheerily unvarnished presence: she is, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merchandise booth.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the manner such individual artistic pursuits typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to a record that was released just a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And should it occur, the closing Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is not destined to fade into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is traveling across the United Kingdom through October 23rd.