EXCLUSIVE First Listen: Let JADE be your Fantasy

What is pop music to you? Is it an escape? A guilty pleasure to be listened to in private? For the artist formerly known as Jade Thirlwall, it's an outlet to explore, experiment and let her freak flag fly, if her second solo single Fantasy (out tomorrow) is anything to go by.

Angel Of My Dreams, of course, was the starting gun for JADE's solo career. As we called it at the time, it is a bold and brilliant pop song that didn't sound like a commercial Top 40 hit. The fact that it was - peaking at Number 7 and becoming the first song by a Little Mix alum to spend two weeks in the UK Top 10 - is a testament to how engaging and arresting JADE is as a pop star. 

The sleek and slinky Midnight Cowboy (featuring uncredited backing vocals from Doctor Who himself, Ncuti Gatwa) was an interesting detour, but Fantasy is where JADE's vision for pop ramps up a notch again. 

Much like Angel Of My Dreams, it seems uncouth to describe Fantasy as being wholly indebted to one genre or the other. Instead, you can clearly hear the influences JADE is pulling from here - Chic's 1970s funk, the sheen of 80s post-disco and, in a thrilling reveal, Mariah Carey's 1997 opus Butterfly - into an ever-evolving suite of music (not unlike RAYE's seven-minute long Genesis. from earlier this year) that begs you not to take it at face value, and instead go along for the ride.

Fantasy - once again co-written by JADE and produced by pop auteur Mike Sabath - opens with the sound of laughter, over a lush synth soundscape and the Nile Rodgers-esque strum of guitars, with the echoed hums of 'passion...pain...pleasure...no shame.'

'If you like it weird,' JADE coos, 'I like it strange. It's a Fantasy, babe.'

Fantasy then switches gears again, cruising into a section where JADE raps like a RuPaul's Drag Race contestant about to lip sync for their lives, diva! 

'I think it's time we pop Pandora's box,' she states, 'think of the time we've lost trying to be what we're not.'

This seems especially true to JADE, who has admitted taking her time with her solo releases, fighting against initial desires to make singles custom-made for radio playlists or TikTok virality, and instead, she's channeled her inner pop girl and really thought about what she wants her own brand of pop music to say. That she believes it's a method of self-transformation and self-actualisation. You can - and should - be whatever you want to be. 

Stacking Angel Of My Dreams, Midnight Cowboy and now Fantasy against each other, it's clear to see that the only through-line is JADE's vision for her solo career, instead of an overly cohesive sonic palette. The cohesion is that there is no cohesion, Fantasy is a bracing reminder that the greatest pleasures can sometimes be the most unexpected. 

Fantasy sounds nothing like the songs that are currently charting in the Official Singles Chart, but then again...so did Angel Of My Dreams. 

Let JADE be your Fantasy. We promise you won't be disappointed.

Fantasy by JADE drops tomorrow (Friday October 18) via RCA/Sony.