The United Kingdom’s first Eurovision win came in 1967, with a curious oompah song called “Puppet on a String.” The vocalist who sang it, Sandie Shaw, hated the track: She later said she found it sexist and twee. But she was cajoled into recording it, and the song became a success, topping the British charts for three weeks.
A bar of “Puppet on a String” is the first thing you hear on “Angel of My Dreams,” Jade Thirlwall’s debut solo single. Like Shaw, Thirlwall spent years being pushed into things by men in her orbit. After getting her start performing in school musicals and at local singing competitions, she came to prominence as a member of Little Mix, the British girl group formed on “The X Factor” in 2011 that went on to become a sensation approaching Spice Girls levels in the U.K. (The boy band One Direction was formed in the same fashion a year earlier.)
She described her feelings about the show and time in the group as a “tightrope of gratitude and resentment.” “I can’t sit and justify everything that we went through on the show, everything that went on behind the scenes that wasn’t OK — it still changed my life,” she said. “I think we all suffered, some more than others. And also, we were 18, we just weren’t knowledgeable enough to know how to deal with being in the limelight.”
Little Mix lasted for 11 years, amassing 19 Top 10 singles in the U.K., including five No 1s. Its songs both amplified and softened the girl power messaging of forebears like the Spice Girls and Girls Aloud with songs like “Shout Out to My Ex” and “Power,” which exemplified the sloganeering feminism of the mid-2010s.
“The ethos of Little Mix was more of a universal concept — a lot of our songs had to speak to so many people,” Thirlwall said. “It’s what you need from a girl band, right? The whole point is togetherness and solidarity and sisterhood.”
There were cracks, however: In 2020, Jesy Nelson left the group, citing the strain that celebrity and online trolling had on her mental health. Little Mix continued as a trio, but announced a hiatus in 2021.
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The post Reality TV Made Jade Thirlwall Famous. As a Solo Act, She Keeps It Real. appeared first on New York Times.
