JADE turns industry survival into a strut on “IT girl”
Jade Thirlwall’s second solo single weaponises pop maximalism — a vocal showcase that slams into thick electro-pop drums — to settle scores with an industry that treated her as a product. Concept and chorus arrive at the same volume.
“It’s a revenge song dressed as a runway walk — and the styling never gets in the way of the hook.”
Jade Thirlwall spent over a decade as a quarter of one of Britain’s biggest pop groups, and “IT girl” is the sound of someone who has seen exactly how the machine works and decided to narrate it from the inside. The persona is glossy and untouchable — the title alone is a flex — but the subject is the opposite of glamorous: being poked, prodded, papped and penalised as a young woman in the spotlight. That tension is the whole song.
What keeps it from collapsing into pure concept is the build. It opens by foregrounding her voice — a reminder that she can actually sing — before slamming into thick, slightly wobbly electro-pop drums, the same vocal-to-bombast juxtaposition that made “Angel of My Dreams” land. Jade has called this track that song’s confrontational younger sibling, and the comparison is fair: it goes harder and shinier, trading some of the strangeness for a more direct dancefloor punch.
The chorus is the test, because a song this concept-heavy lives or dies on whether the hook can carry the attitude. It mostly can. The melody is sturdy and the delivery is all sneer and shoulder, which suits a lyric that is essentially a survivor’s victory lap.
Vocally, this is where Jade separates the persona from the styling. A lesser pop record would let the production do the talking; here the voice stays in command — playful, sharp, occasionally caustic — so the IT-girl image reads as a costume she has chosen rather than one she has been dressed in. That control is the difference between a song about empowerment and a song that actually sounds empowered.
If there is a limit, it is that the maximalism occasionally outpaces the melody. A couple of sections lean on sheer production weight — the drums, the harmonies stacked into a wall — where a slightly stickier topline would have made the hook inescapable rather than merely effective. The concept is fully realised; the song underneath it is strong without being her sharpest.
Final take: “IT girl” is a confident, well-built electro-pop statement that uses gloss as armour. The concept lands because Jade keeps her voice — and her point of view — out in front of the styling. It is a strut with a grievance underneath, and it earns the swagger.
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