“People want somewhere to belong”: Inside the 21st century northern soul revival

Posted On February 6, 2025February 6, 2025

“Life is just a precious minute, baby, open up your eyes and see it, give yourself a better chance, because time will pass you right on by.” – Tobi Legend

All-night dances, amphetamines, and living for the weekend: northern soul is among the most exciting and unexpected music scenes the United Kingdom has ever fostered. Emerging from the back end of the mod subculture during the late 1960s and early 1970s, young people all across the North of England became inexplicably obsessed with obscure, unwanted, and forgotten soul records from the United States. Today, an entirely new generation of young people is following in those footsteps.

Originally, the northern soul scene was born from a mixture of economic deprivation across northern England and a rejection of the mainstream pop music thrust onto young people by major record companies and programmes like Top of the Pops. A generation of young people, whose only prospects appeared to be working in factories, mills, or coal mines, were not content with the sanitised, banal nature of chart music. So, they began to look to the United States, where funk and soul dominated the music scene, spurred on by labels like Motown, Stax, and Atlantic.

Before too long, nightclubs started springing up in places like Wigan, Blackpool, and Manchester, which were dedicated to playing this infectious music from across the Atlantic. Disc jockeys became bitter rivals, with each DJ looking to dig up the most infectious, danceable, and, crucially, obscure soul records possible. After this unexpected youth subculture was christened ‘northern soul’ by Soul City Records boss Dave Godin, clubs across the north were packed with young people hopped up on amphetamines and a love of the beating rhythm of soul.

Nothing lasts forever, and by the mid-1970s, many of the venues that had hosted northern soul all-nighters began to shut their doors. Manchester’s Twisted Wheel was among the first to go, shut down in 1971 after being targeted by local police and councillors for its drug-fuelled dances. Golden Torch in Stoke followed in 1973, again targeted by the local council, and the legendary Wigan Casino closed in 1981. However, the northern soul scene never fully went away.

In the decades since its heyday, northern soul events have continued to thrive in communities across the nation. Some club nights from the old days, such as the Leeds Central Soul Club, are still going strong with the original DJs as back in the 1970s, and venues like The Harold Club in Bradford continue to host northern soul events on a regular basis to crowds both new and old.

Interestingly, though, recent years have witnessed a resurgence in northern soul among young people, with many starting up their own club nights dedicated to this captivating music from decades ago. These newly established nights see young and old soul fans on the same dance floors, united by a love of music, if not by their age.

“People want somewhere to belong,” explains Greta Mary Kaur-Taylor of the Manchester-based soul DJ collective Northern Grooves. “Young people are disenfranchised by the current state of the country politically and economically, and northern soul offers a space where you can listen to music that really speaks to you, and you can just dance and not care about how little money you have or anything outside, it all stays out there.”

For young people like Kaur-Taylor, northern soul was passed down, perfectly preserved through the generations. “My dad is from Warrington and listened to it when I was a kid. I never took much notice and wrote it off as ‘just dad music’, but then he made me watch the [Elaine Constantine] film Northern Soul and loads of stuff about the casino, and I got it and longed to be a part of it,” the DJ revealed. 

Will Foot, one half of Deptford Northern Soul Club, shares a similar take on the reasons behind the current revival, saying, “It’s ‘togetherness’, as The Younghearts sing. A group of like-minded people coming together at the end of the working week to dance, socialise, fall in love and pass their days to sound they love.”

DNSC has hosted northern soul events up and down the nation, in addition to reissuing various soul classics on vinyl – helping out those young DJs who can’t afford the hefty price tags demanded by many original northern soul records.

“I think northern soul resonates with the youth of today because of that togetherness, the accessibility and passion of all people involved,” Foot continues. “Through no real fault of their own, young people have grown up in a world more connected yet more isolating and lonely than ever. I think the sense of belonging that northern soul can give people is the reason it’s still popular.”

One of the most popular soul clubs of this vibrant new age comes, not from the glorious north, but instead from down in Bristol. Founded by dancer, DJ, and influencer Levanna McLean and her mother and fellow DJ, Eve Burgsoul, shortly after the pandemic, the club now hosts regular sold-out all-nighters largely attended by young people keen on hearing obscure and infectious soul rhythms from all those years ago.

“The northern soul story is still being written […], and we want to in some way shape that too,” Levanna McLean told us. “Bristol Northern Soul Club has its own story and identity, and the important thing is we help people fall in love with the music,” Eve Burgsoul continued. “We have young people coming up to us and telling us about northern soul records they’ve discovered, and that is such a buzz, something we could only have imagined all those years ago.”

Bristol Northern Soul Club have played a huge role in the revival of northern soul in recent years, blending a grassroots approach with the wide-reaching online audience of McLean to alert more people about this incredible music and dance scene.

“We put the dancing at the forefront of the club and helped a lot of people get into the dancing, which you can see in the range of styles of dancers at the club,” Eve told us, adding, “Sometimes visiting DJs tell us, it’s the closest they will ever feel to being at Wigan Casino.”

Inevitably, there has been pushback to the recent renaissance in northern soul by certain clubs and fans who spent their youth dancing at places like Wigan Casino during its golden age. While some of the older demographic view the modern scene as being derivative of the old days, unable to capture the same spirit, others see the revival as carrying on the torch set out by the first wave of northern soul back in the 1970s.

“People aren’t so sure about us,” Foot shared of older fans’ attitudes towards Deptford Northern Soul Club Nights. “[They] think we need to pay dues or be over 50 years old to be legitimately a northern soul night; we tend to ignore them and just play music we love in spaces people want to dance in.”

Northern Grooves offer a different perspective on northern soul’s generational gap, saying, “I think our demographic is a bit different due to the fact we play in lots of student high traffic areas, we get a mix of students and older people coming which is really nice because it’s like a merging of generations.” Kaur-Taylor added, “I love also when we play on multi-aged lineups it’s nice to all come together.”

Cultural trends are often cyclical in nature; everything comes back into fashion eventually. Northern soul is a pretty unique case, though. The scene never truly died; soul nights have been happening on a regular basis across the country since the 1970s, yet its recent resurgence in popularity among the younger generation certainly seems like a significant event.

The fact that young people are still looking to spend their weekends travelling to clubs and venues around the nation in search of all-night dances speaks to the timeless appeal of old-school soul music, as well as the unifying power of northern soul.

Where the northern soul revival will go from here remains to be seen, although it seems as though it becomes increasingly widespread from week to week as more young people become exposed to that beating rhythm. For as long as people continue to uncover lost and forgotten soul tracks and people are willing to dance to them, northern soul will live on. As DNSC’s Will Foot told us, “I really think that it’s the best time ever to be a northern soul lover.”

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