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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the public imagination. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a more edgy urban music style, complete with at least one single including a cameo by an US hip-hop artist, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

A Unique Journey

This common scenario that makes the idiosyncratic path thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are known for undertaking, including 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 fan displaying the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from the track Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than the norm.

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, jolting and fragmented melange of grand emotional pop songs, noisy synthesisers and audio excerpts from Sandie Shaw’s Puppet On A String.

As the set on her initial individual concert series demonstrates, not every song on her debut album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: the track Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally typical dancefloor-oriented pop, powered by precisely the Supremes sample its title suggests; things are padded out with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of 90s dance hits, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that present a borderline atonal brand of funk or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She offers Unconditional to her mother: it has a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar combined with metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, delightfully authentic figure: she is, she states at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she suggests showing appreciation by adding a branded jockstrap to the merchandise booth.

Future Possibilities

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers end – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster resolved, a press conference to announce that the original group are back – but the reality that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that only came out a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And even if it does, the closing Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester this evening and is traveling across the United Kingdom until 23 October.