A crashing wave of joy and euphoria overwhelms the listener.
Relatively unknown for many years, and with its defining venues (the Wigan Casino, the Twisted Wheel) now faded into historical footnotes, Northern Soul has always seemed ripe for a movie treatment. Featuring pilled-up Wigan lads and lasses dancing in massive flares to incredibly obscure soul singles, SoulBoy seeks to do for Northern Soul what Quadrophenia did for mod. And its greatest weapon is this soundtrack.
Two CDs of brilliant music – although, as one is labeled as the main character’s "mix tape", you fear for the film’s authenticity – this release will do more than any movie to popularise a genre so deliberately anti-commercial that DJs would steam the labels off their own rare, prized records to stop rivals from copying their sets. Still, it worked for mod, a movement whose music was almost as infectious, but riddled with a far more pernicious snobbery.
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Source: BBC Music