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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of former members of TV talent show-manufactured bands seldom grip the audience's attention. 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 American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the visual and auditory experience of someone gamely killing time before the inevitable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall surprisingly refreshing. She’s certainly not above engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them emphatically stating 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 official goods stand is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a song line from Gossip, her collaboration with electronic pair the group Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

An Impressive First Single

She opened her solo account with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jolting and disjointed melange of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and audio excerpts 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: Before You Break My Heart is insanely catchy, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, powered by exactly the Supremes sample the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from 808’s Pacific State to N-Trance’s Set You Free.

More Intriguing Material

However, there exists additional 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 borderline atonal style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with deep reverberation. She dedicates Unconditional to her mother: it features a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs allied to metallic pounding beats. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by electroclash, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The artist on stage is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished figure: she declares, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she proposes thanking them by including a official undergarment to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the way such individual artistic pursuits end – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson expressed in the song Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to declare that the original group are reunited – but the fact that every attendee seem to be knowing every lyric as they sing along to a record that was released just a month ago makes you wonder. And should it occur, the final performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Jade's individual musical path is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester tonight and is touring the UK until 23 October.