The Pop Corporation

We’ve all seen how tricky the pop landscape is when you go it alone after being in a successful group for years and years. It is by no-means a sure thing and, where new artists may be given the chance to breathe and grow, someone from a successful group comes with the baggage of expectation.

Robbie Williams was a rare success, leaving Take That to make music that was very different from his time with Gary Barlow. In fact, even though Barlow wrote the songs, his solo career faltered without the backing of his bandmates. When the Spice Girls splintered, there were hits, but it was interesting that each member veered into territory that was very different from what they’d done before, with Melanie C switching between R&B, Eurodance and even a superb Radio 2 rocker with Bryan Adams.

However, the road to going solo is littered with failures and often, it’s because an artist wants to showcase a more mature sound to show how real they are, after all that manufactured stuff. There’s not many careers like Justin Timberlake’s, right? And that wasn’t without its problems.

And so to Jade Thirlwall, who is cutting about after her stint in Little Mix (aside – one of the poorest choices for a group name in recent memory when you look at it in isolation). There have been attempts at solo stuff from within the group, which have been patchy, but Jade has come hot out of the gate and… well… seems to be doing exactly what she wants!

Full of interesting choices, humour, sass, and looking for all the world like a real person rather than a manicured millionaire with a team of hundreds around, there’s a spontaneity to her songs that is genuinely refreshing to see. Often, going solo means taking the same amount of advice as before, only potentially from a different source. Thirlwall genuinely seems to be in the middle of creating her own space in the cluttered world of pop, sidestepping the temptation to jump on the hyper-pop train, or whatever. There’s something pleasantly unusual about her music which showcases a woman with an actual taste in music to lean on – as in, you can actively hear that she might have been listening to some oddball, good records from the underground. Not as a box-ticking exercise, rather, she’s into it.

Her debut ‘Angel of My Dreams’ was fizzing with energy and chaos, giving the listener unexpected turns and transitions – not something you normally see with your average established popstar. Even the visuals that accompanied the song were full of surprises.

Neil Tennant once bemoaned that there was too much ‘me’ in pop, looking at the propensity for confessional pop and refusal to take on a character. Not so with Thirlwell who appeared as some hideous version of celebrity, and taking jabs at the X Factor of which she came from with the lyric: “Selling my soul to a psycho – they say I’m so lucky – better act like you’re lucky, honey.”

Mixing the personal with the character in one move, anyone paying attention found their ears pricking up. She’d also release a ‘sad’ version too, just for the hell of it.

And now, we have the absolute powerhouse that is ‘Midnight Cowboy’, which has all the hallmarks of winning the £20 PopJustice prize – a hectic, fun piece of dance pop that drops “hold on tight, the performance is about to begin”, which is destined to light up a million dancefloors as we head into the dark, nightclub months of winter.

The fact that she released the song to keep us going ’til the next one shows a spontaneity that has been sorely lacking in pop. She said: “It’s important to me that i keep sharing my artistry and hard work with the world, so i wanted to drop a track to hold you over until the next single.” Perhaps accidentally, she might have released the best British pop song of 2024.

Leigh-Anne Pinnock released a super fun UK Garage track last year, and Perrie Edwards launched hers earlier this year, but now, it really feels like it should be all eyes on Jade who wants to deliver everything she can muster, with her own flavour thrown into the mix. Almost anti-trend, ergo, the sound of a potential genuine trend-setter. The less said about Jesy, the better, probably.

Speaking to Billboard, she said: “I’m a huge pop fan, and when I look at the pop girlies that I love, they’re the ones that are doing the absolute most. The looks, the choreo, the big songs, big choruses — give it to me! That’s what I want and that’s what I want to deliver! This is essentially me starting again, so I don’t even know what it feels like fame-wise on my own. I’m really grateful I started this journey now at my age, because I’m just a lot more level-headed. I couldn’t be a solo artist 10 years ago. We’ll see what happens.”

For Little Mix fans who always thought Jade was the best one, this latest release will only vindicate them more. You see, it seems that we’ve got a new popstar who isn’t afraid of doing things that might be deemed a little strange. So, with that, we’re reminded of Kylie Minogue at her best. Maybe a dash of GaGa when she first arrived? Maybe a whiff of Britney when she released ‘Toxic’ and ‘Slave 4 U’? There’s some of that magic in her songs that give us a lot of hope for the full album rollout.

And the video? Super confident and will no doubt see fans who have grown up with Jade cheering her own as she reclaims her image from her old group and showcases this new, strutting with confidence 2024 version. It’s scintillating stuff, but rather than being interesting posturing, it’s just brilliant and exciting.

The new album, ‘Fantasy’ is out October 18th, and of this New Jade versus The Old One, she says: “There was a formula within the band of, you know, girl power, or, ‘we don’t like boys!’ – which we loved. But on my own it was more experimental, conceptually. The rulebook was thrown out the window of what a standard pop record should sound like.”

“It’s about my love-hate relationship with the music industry. I love being a pop star, but I also hate what comes with it.”

She’s become more outspoken, shouted about the things she loves, pissed off politicians, and now she doesn’t have to worry about throwing her bandmates. That speaks to more than just Jade being an interesting, likeable character – she’s using this energy and applying it to her own music. Now, she’s not in any danger of throwing anyone else under the bus, and standing firmly on her own two feet, and making some fabulous music in the process. Instead of being handled, it sounds hands-on. It sounds like her. In a field where personality can be so sorely lacking or discouraged from various management and meetings, Thirlwell is in no danger of that.