JADE’s Next Act: From Pop Student to Pop Architect
For years, Jade Thirlwall lived in the eye of the storm. As a member of Little Mix, she endured a decade of relentless schedules, chart-topping triumphs, and the brutal magnifying glass of fame. Yet, behind the glitz and choreography, Jade often wondered: what happens when the girl group curtain finally falls?
When the answer arrived, it came not as silence but as a roar. That’s Showbiz Baby!, her long-awaited solo debut, has done more than simply announce Jade’s arrival—it has rewritten the rules of what it means to graduate from the pop academy into superstardom.
The story of That’s Showbiz Baby! begins not in a recording booth, but in the quiet of Jade’s South Shields home. After Little Mix disbanded, she took time away from the spotlight, immersing herself in the music she loved as a child—Motown vinyls spun by her parents, disco classics discovered in thrift shops, and the neon flash of 2000s electropop. What she found wasn’t just nostalgia. It was a blueprint.
“I live and breathe pop,” she confided in one late-night studio session, “but pop isn’t one thing—it’s all things.” That mantra became the DNA of the album.
The record’s lead single, Angels of My Dreams, set the tone: a song that isn’t content to simply sparkle but interrogates the very machine that creates pop idols. Its verses, sharp and electroclash, sound like the industry chewing her up; its chorus, dreamy and angelic, sounds like her fighting to hold on to innocence. It was more than a single—it was a manifesto.
But Jade didn’t stop at industry critique. She pushed into genres with the daring curiosity of someone finally free. She dabbled in electropop on IT Girl and Midnight Cowboy, stripped down to balladry in Natural at Disaster, and flirted with R&B sensuality on Lip Service. Each track became a test: not of whether she could mimic trends, but whether she could bend them into her orbit.
Her boldest moment, however, came with disco. Songs like Before You Break My Heart, sampling The Supremes’ immortal Stop! In The Name of Love, revealed a Jade unafraid to strut into glitter-soaked territory. The euphoric Fantasy became a liberation anthem, while Self Saboteur unfolded like a lost Kylie Minogue gem—joyous, heartbreaking, and entirely hers.
Yet the soul of the album lies in Unconditional. It’s a kaleidoscope of influences—Giorgio Moroder’s pulse, Anita Ward’s shimmer, MGMT’s oddball edge—but its weight comes from Jade’s raw lyricism. Written about her mother’s ongoing health struggles, it pairs disco ecstasy with aching vulnerability. “If I lose you now, then I lose it all,” she sings, the line hitting like a confession whispered on the dancefloor. In that contradiction—joy and sorrow colliding—Jade finds her truest voice.
Of course, not everything lands perfectly. Headache wears its Lady Gaga homage a bit too openly, and Glitch feels like a leftover from Ariana Grande’s trap-pop drawer. But even these imperfections are telling: Jade isn’t trying to erase her influences. She’s acknowledging them, wrestling with them, and in the process, learning how to outgrow them.
That’s Showbiz Baby! is not the work of someone testing the waters. It is a declaration: Jade Thirlwall is no longer just a star student of pop. She has become one of its architects, sketching her own empire in neon, disco balls, and heartbreak.
And perhaps the most tantalizing part? This is only her beginning.