After starting the rollout a year and some change, British blooming pop savant JADE has released her debut album THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY!
This comes 3 after her original girl group, Little Mix, announced their hiatus in 2022 after creating phenomenal pop music for a decade. Being the last one of the group to begin her solo career, the pressure was on to see what she would deliver. What Jade brings to the music table is a recipe of killer vocals masterfully colliding with the kookiest instrumentals, making the most bombastic debut album of this year and this decade, easily.
I say this with absolute love as a Little Mix fan since 2012; Little Mix’s music was deliciously cookie-cutter. They were followed to pop conventions with expertise. This made their music easy listening, fit for the grocery stores and top 40 radio stations. Some people, including myself, fell in absolute love with their work, while others found it unmemorable. However, nothing could compare to the rollercoaster JADE takes the listeners on with her debut single, Angel of my Dreams released in July 2024.
On its 3-minute and 17-minute run time, JADE does what she calls a “suckerpunch of pop” with the song consisting of 3 acts. It starts soft and sweet, with the vocals carrying the lyrics of “ Angel of my dream/I will always love and hate you/It’s not fair.” The song then drenches us with a pulsing beat destined for the clubs, where JADE gives us a recap of her career, highlighting the hardships she faced, but how, with a dramatic closer, she confesses she will always love music.
That single threw fans and critics into a whirlwind, anticipating what new world of pop JADE would guide us to.
THAT’S SHOWBIZ BABY! It is an expedition of JADE’s study of pop and what she will add to the curriculum. Each song is jarring, with beat switch-ups, unconventional sounds, and lyrics spliced and wrapped up with her angelic yet off-kilter voice as the bow. Second official single Fantasy paid tribute to disco pop while detailing her wishes for her lover to share their sexual desires so she can make them come true. Unconditional conveys JADE wanting to heal her mom’s disease (Lupus) over a beat with 80s pop base, splattered with strong guitar and drums straight from the golden age of pop punk. The closer, Silent Disco, is an already classic love song where Jade flexes the highs and depths of where it goes.
The album itself is good, but what I must also highlight is how she amplified it with a visual album. I’m still on the fact that the Angel of my Dreams was the best music video of 2024. It is required to watch after reading this article. And each song gets the same love, with accompanying music video and visualizers, the latter of which were shot in 2 days. Each capsulates the vibrant and wacky energy of the song, amplifying the overall experience. The rollout of this album reminds me of when albums were treated as larger-than-life experiences.
If I didn’t say enough, JADE knocks it out of the park with her debut. It is the album I will be bumping to cope with this semester, and watch as JADE begins her tour this month and will be making her American tour next year, but also for lifetimes. What this debut does best is show how, though Jade covers a lot of ground, it is clear she is just on the tip of her potential.
