The Philadelphia Sound

[Rob Hall]

like a golden oldie, this topic has been played before - see Garth's starter for ten, under Singing in English

That's scary. There's so much stuff down there in the vaults that I never knew about (and I thought I'd been paying attention), and a lot of stuff that we've covered over again since. Maybe we should recycle more.

[felonious munk]

In fact, I doubt there's anyone here who would defend "Northern Soul".

Is it even defendable given that it's a movement (r 'n' b music that was popularised in northern English dance venues in the '60s and '70s) rather than an identifiable genre? My wife was a big northern soul girl when she was younger, and she describes all sorts of things that I play (from some Motown and Stax to the Shirelles, Chairmen of the Board and James and Bobby Purify) as "northern soul".

Or am I completely out of touch (as usual), and it's morphed into a specific sound?

Your wife is right. Northern Soul is a scene of scenes with as much division and diversity as any other dance music genre. It never was a specific sound but it did come to be associated with 4 on the floor motown imitations. Given that ther have been more Northern Soul records in the charts than say World Music it's a bit much to say "But it was obscure because it wasn't very good!"

"Good" records are records that I like, "bad" records are liked by other people.