Jade Thirlwall, known by the mononym Jade, released her solo debut visual album “THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY!” on Sept. 12, a year after her lead single “Angel of My Dreams” released in July 2024.
Jade is an English singer and former member of one of the biggest and best-selling girl groups in the United Kingdom known as Little Mix. Little Mix rose to fame after they became the first group ever to win “The X Factor UK” in 2011. Ten years later, the group announced their indefinite hiatus.
Jade said she had an advantage of being an unexpected success, according to an interview with international fashion magazine L’OFFICIEL, which was founded in 1921 Paris.
“There’s a lot they don’t know about my artistry or what I can write on my own,” she said, in the interview. “So, once I started the writing process and got in the swing of things, I loved the idea of pleasantly surprising people.”
“THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY!” with 14 songs at 51 minutes long, is full of pleasant surprises. With sounds like electroclash, futuristic R&B and disco-funk, audiences can tell throughout this body of work that Jade had a creative vision that was intently produced and perfectly executed. Every song on the album has its own unique sound while still being cohesive in the track run.
Themes of the album discuss Jade’s experience with stardom, reinvention, independence, the beauty and struggle of relationships, her own intrapersonal relationship and even sensuality.
The visuals offer an amazing storytelling experience. In the lead single “Angel of My Dreams” Jade samples a song by Sandie Shaw, an English singer, titled “Puppet on a String” that was released in 1967.
Jade’s take on Shaw’s song offers a chaotic, dance-pop and electroclash sound with lyrics that express her love-hate relationship with stardom: “Care if I cry, care if I die, you only care about money. Sellin’ my soul to a psycho, they say I’m so lucky. Better act like you’re lucky, honey,” she writes in the lyrics.
The music video makes the song that much more enjoyable with the scene of a celebrity being overlooked and tossed to the side by her label, who is represented by an exaggeratedly enormous man, due to an upcoming star taking the spotlight that cannot be shared. This begins a cycle, which results in jealousy and ends in tragedy.
In her song “Before You Break My Heart” Jade pays homage to her younger self by including vocals of her singing “Stop! In the Name of Love” by The Supremes at a young age.
The song alone may indicate the dissatisfaction in a relationship between partners but in the visual Jade time travels to share the screen with a younger version of herself. This can serve as a reminder to acknowledge her inner child with lyrics that say: “I’m your day one baby but, you’re forgetting lately and it’s tearing us apart.”
“Glitch,” a song that has futuristic R&B and hyperpop sounds is a song to look out for. The song, which can symbolize intrusive thoughts and anxiety, tells them to leave her alone and that they’re just a glitch.
Jade’s creativity truly jumps out with this song. A visualizer typically consists of a short clip that repeats on a continuous loop throughout the duration of a song. Jade reconstructs this idea of a visualizer and gives it more depth by presenting the audience with a story telling experience.
In the visualizer there are multiple versions of herself dressed in the same outfit and they engage in a ritual, sacrificing her younger self to the music industry and fighting one another.
An amazing song called “Self Saboteur” is paired with a visualizer that takes the format of an Instagram live and has an amazing attention to detail with comments on the ‘live video’ that relate to other videos on the album, as well as what could be considered fan or hate comments.
The visualizer doesn’t do the song justice. It isn’t necessarily bad but it lacks the same attention-grabbing material as the rest of the visualizers and music videos.
“Self Saboteur” transitions seamlessly into “Lip Service,” a song with an upbeat, fun sound that disguises the suggestiveness of its lyrics paired with an equally racy and simultaneously lighthearted visual.
“Natural at Disaster” which discusses the turmoil of toxic relationships and how love can be blinding is the one song on the album that only received a lyric video which leaves room for speculation that this song may be her next single.
Jade’s beautiful vocals, her ‘frankesteined’ sound, along with her over-the-top camp visuals, will leave her audiences yearning for more.