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With the exception of Harry Styles, individual artistic journeys of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the public imagination. These efforts typically adhere to predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, replete with at least a track featuring a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a move into mature Radio 2-friendly smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a dimly remembered placeholder, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in doing the kind of things that former talent show band members are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she’s no longer subject the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her collaboration 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 the norm.

A Superb Debut

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

During the performance on her initial individual concert series proves, not everything on her first full-length release her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting 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 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 melds an Abba-esque chorus with song sections that offer a nearly discordant brand of funk or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mum: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs combined with clanging industrial drums. The song IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic presence: she is, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests thanking them by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the manner these kind of solo careers end – the hostility towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to announce that the original group are reunited – but the fact that the entire audience seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to an album that only came out a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And should it occur, the final Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

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