When you first listen to ‘That’s Showbiz Baby!’, you’ll be struck by how much of a student of pop music JADE really is. Sure, the South Shields singer has more experience than most artists on their debut album, given she’s been a member of Little Mix for over a decade and has navigated the music industry since she was 18. But look beyond that, and you’ll realise how cleverly she understands and uses her craft, how she plays with trends and genres to truly make them her own.
It’s best exemplified by the album’s opener and lead single, ‘Angels Of My Dreams’, a sharp, complex look at her relationship with the music industry that NME previously named one of the best songs of 2024. Its internal push and pull – frenzied, electroclash verses coming up against the dreamy, angelic chorus – is, coincidentally or not, a lovely reflection of the album as a whole: chaotic, intense, with a bit of everything thrown in.
Whether it’s hard-and-fast electropop (‘IT Girl’ and ‘Midnight Cowboy’), a vocal-led ballad moment (‘Natural At Disaster’) or something more in the R&B world (‘Lip Service’), she tackles it all head-on with the gusto of someone who’s finally been given the chance to do what she wants and loves. Everything fits like a glove on the burgeoning pop great, but JADE is at her best when she embraces her inner disco goddess.
The genre’s euphoric, danceable nature pairs beautifully with the singer’s oft-vulnerable vocal delivery, such as on the groovy ‘Before You Break My Heart’, which samples The Supremes’ ‘Stop! In The Name Of Love’. Her natural affinity with disco shines brightest on the mid-album run of ‘Fantasy’, a genuinely joyous celebration of sexual liberation, to the bittersweet Kylie-esque love song ‘Self Saboteur’.
Sandwiched between the latter two is album highlight ‘Unconditional’, a mix of Giorgio Moroder’s pioneering production work on Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, laser synths that recall the addictiveness of Anita Ward’s classic 1979 hit ‘Ring My Bell’ and a dash of MGMT for good measure. Like many great disco songs, it features a strong undercurrent of sadness, and here that’s driven by JADE’s exploration of her emotions around her mother’s battle with illnesses (“You’re killing me with all your self-neglection / If I lose you now, then I lose it all).
As the singer herself admits, she “live[s] and breathe[s] pop music”, so it’s no surprise then that JADE’s influences can sometimes be stronger than her own voice. Dancey cut ‘Headache’ is a worse version of Lady Gaga’s ‘Zombieboy’, while ‘Glitch’ sounds like a leftover from Ariana Grande’s trap era. These moments are few and far between on this thoughtful 14-track album, where only three songs run shorter than three minutes, but blemish an otherwise flawless debut.
After being a student of the pop world all her life, JADE is ready to graduate from girl group starlet to full-fledged pop superstar on ‘That’s Showbiz Baby!’, a statement piece of an album that’s chock-full of bravado, intelligence and, frankly, hits.
