![]() ![]() As I’ve noted, older participants in the current scene continue to talk about ‘keeping the faith’: they have an intense identification with the scene that has proven to be of enduring significance – and perhaps even the most important element in their lives, well beyond their teenage years. It is something that ‘gets in your blood’, a ‘movement’, even a kind of ‘religion’, with its own set of values. In documentaries and memoirs, it is routinely described as a way of life, or a lifestyle. In this respect, Northern Soul seems very different from much more dispersed phenomena like punk.įor some of its adherents, however, Northern Soul represents much more than this. I’ve tended to talk about ‘scenes’ partly because of the geographical locatedness of these phenomena, the fact that they involved large groups of people gathering together in specific settings for limited periods of time. There has been some rather tiresome debate among youth culture scholars as to the validity of these (and other related) terms. However, I have tended to employ the word ‘scene’ rather than ‘subculture’ here. Yet to what extent can Northern Soul be seen as a subculture? It was certainly subterranean or ‘underground’, in the sense of being hidden from wider public view for several years and it was to some extent subversive, in that it might have seemed to embody a different set of values and priorities from those of the mainstream adult culture. The ‘homology’ of elements I’ve identified here can easily be compared with those of other youth subcultures. ![]()
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