JADE, 'THAT'S SHOWBIZ BABY!' Album Review

THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! Reintroduces JADE As a Maximalist Pop Princess

When a member of a beloved group act decides to strike out on their own, there’s always a lot riding on their debut solo single. One song to reintroduce a familiar face in a new context and, for better or worse, be judged alongside other former bandmates’ solo work when audiences inevitably decide who’s the breakout star. Everyone wants to be the Justin or the Harry, but not everyone can be. Released two years after her X Factor-bred girl group Little Mix announced an indefinite hiatus, JADE’s debut solo single “Angel of My Dreams” is not only a masterclass in this canon, it’s one of the best pop songs of the 2020s. In interviews, JADE has described the style of music she wants to make as “Frankenstein pop,” and “Angel of My Dreams” is that in spades, at times feeling like about three-and-a-half great pop songs sewn together with the stitches showing on purpose.

From the sample of Sandie Shaw’s 1967 Eurovision-winning “Puppet On A String” interrupted by a goofy call-to-action from JADE to her producer Mike Sabath (“Hey Mike, let’s do something crazy!”), to the pounding bassline and camera shutter clicking sounds underscoring JADE’s sped-up vocals, to the jaw-dropping note she belts out at the final chorus, “Angel of My Dreams” is messy, overstimulating pop from a capital-D Diva. When she first auditioned for The X-Factor in 2008, then-15-year-old JADE was deemed not strong enough as a solo star and put into a group as an alternative to elimination. Seventeen years later, she’s grown into her hard-earned spotlight.

JADE’s debut solo album THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! comes on the wave of a maximalist pop revival. While the dominant mode of pop stardom of the late ’10s and early ’20s favored a more muted sound—folk influence, whispery vocals, a lyrical and aesthetic focus on confessionalism and vulnerability—the past year or so has seen the pendulum swing back towards a brasher, full-glam flavor of pop that blurs the line between authenticity and artifice. The true turning point was the summer of 2024—BRAT-mania, the “Espresso”-led rollout of Short n’ Sweet that turned Sabrina Carpenter into a household name, the delayed but fervent reaction to Chappell Roan’s big gay rhinestone cowgirl oeuvre,“Diet Pepsi” marking Addison Rae’s transformation from Hype House alum to trip-hop Britney, and JADE’s reintroduction with “Angel of My Dreams.”

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Like its lead single, most of the songs on THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! feel like amalgamations of all the weirdo pop ideas that JADE couldn’t quite bring to the table as a member of Little Mix for fear of chewing too much scenery or not sounding commercial enough. It’s hard to imagine the girl group embracing the vogue-able electroclash sound that JADE does on “IT girl” or “Headache”—the latter of which sounds straight out of Santigold or M.I.A.’s early catalogue at times, give or take some Fame-era Gaga theatrics. Maybe Little Mix could’ve attempted the kind of horny high-camp JADE pulls off on “Midnight Cowboy,” but only JADE the solo star could’ve made it her own with outrageous and deep-referential patter (“I’m the ride of your life, not a rental / I’m the editor, call me Mr. Enninful / No vanilla, let’s experimental”) or a spoken-word intro from actor Ncuti Gatwa.

When JADE does disco revival on the excellent three-song, mid-album run of “Fantasy,” “Unconditional,” and “Self Saboteur,” it’s a far cry from the shiny, plastic Antonoff fare that’s had a good portion of pop music in a chokehold for the past five years or more. While these other girls sound like they’re doing ABBA karaoke after some room-temp white wine and a Valium, JADE’s take on disco is lively enough to make you think quaaludes have been legalized. It’s also satisfying to see JADE finally get a proper vehicle for her truly incredible vocal range, to see her belting and whistle-toning and even rapping a bit on the borderline-hyperpoppy “Glitch.” Like any great pop star, JADE is a chameleon, ever-captivating as she shapeshifts through park ’n bark ballads and synthy, up-tempo dance music.

Any weakness that can be gleaned from THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! is a fault of its promotional cycle as much as JADE’s instincts and execution on the record itself. Fourteen tracks long and frontloaded with seven promotional singles drip-fed over the course of a year, the album takes a noticeable dip in the back half—i.e., when all the tracks we haven’t heard yet come in. Luckily the offenses—JADE’s somewhat-muted take on reggaeton and R&B on “Lip Service,” the awkwardly-inserted Supremes sample in the otherwise groovy “Before You Break My Heart,” and the flat lyrics on “Natural At Disaster” rumored to be about JADE’s ex-bandmate Jesy Nelson (“Wreakin’ havoc / Everything you do is problematic”)—are minor, and the record’s highs are high enough to make up for its occasional lows. Still, if you must release half your album as singles, it’s probably best to stagger them throughout the tracklist rather than bifurcate the album into an A-side of singles and a B-side of weaker deep cuts.

THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! positions JADE’s relationship to making music as the most epic, tragic, thrilling, fucked-up love story of her life. This framing isn’t new—the musician enthralled in a passionate yet destructive love affair with their own work, singing love songs and breakup songs to the music itself—but she blows it up to its most theatrical proportions. When she sings “Sellin’ my soul to a psycho” or ends “IT girl” with a pointed “It’s a no from me,” it’s a more-than-obvious dig at X-Factor host and Syco Entertainment founder Simon Cowell. JADE’s directness works because, while unafraid of emotional vulnerability, she’s equally unafraid of looking silly. She knows when to not take herself too seriously and when to approach putting on a good show as a life-or-death matter. After years in a supporting role, JADE has proven herself more than ready to be a leading lady. Welcome to her show.

Read our recent digital cover story on JADE here.

Grace Robins-Somerville is a writer from Brooklyn, New York, currently based in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Her work has appeared in The Alternative, Merry-Go-Round Magazine, Post-Trash, Swim Into The Sound and her “mostly about music” newsletter, Our Band Could Be Your Wife.

THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! Reintroduces JADE As a Maximalist Pop Princess

The chameleonic former Little Mix member, ever-captivating as she shapeshifts through park ’n bark ballads and synthy, up-tempo dance music, goes big on her solo debut.