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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the public imagination. They usually follow certain rules – often a pursuit at a more edgy urban music style, replete with at least one single featuring a guest appearance by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route currently taken by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are wont to do, including emphatically stating that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the factory-produced music business – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the merchandise stall 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 music she’s opted to make 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 Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and fragmented mixture of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her initial individual concert series proves, not every song on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is equally fascinating as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also typical dancefloor-oriented pop, driven by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; things are padded out with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of 90s dance hits, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache combines an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections 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 crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a keyboard-led emotional song before suddenly shifting into a dark computerized noise.

A Charming Performer

The woman at its centre is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she is, she announces at one point, “trembling uncontrollably”; giving a shoutout to her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers end – the hostility towards ex-group member Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster patched up, a media announcement to declare that Little Mix are back – but the reality that every attendee seem to be knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to a record that only came out a month ago causes one to ponder. And even if it does, 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 Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.