Northern Soul: Music, Drugs and Subcultural Identity

by Andrew Wilson
Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing. 2007

As a scholar interested in subcultural studies and deviant behaviour, I find a rather clear division between the former, which often pays homage to the British tradition of cultural studies on the one hand, and criminological studies of deviant and/or delinquent youth on the other. The former tends toward either the celebratory or “real” lived dimensions of young people’s subcultural experiences, while the latter tends toward a pejorative view of youth’s “problems.”  It was with the hope of seeing some form of synthesis between these traditions that I began reading Northern Soul, a historical ethnography that covers the Northern Soul scene as it developed in England in the 1970s.  Northern Soul is a music-based subculture, as indicated by the reference to soul music, which emerged out of the earlier Mod subculture of the 1960s. Wilson is not only a scholar of Northern Soul, but a long-time member of the scene as well. This fact allows a depth of understanding to shine through in his writing where an outsider’s perspective would have failed. He mixes his own (largely invisible) participation in the 1970s scene with interviews with fellow participants in the 1980s and 1990s.

Wilson’s insider status, representative a subcultural studies approach, is visible in Chapters One and Two, where he covers Northern Soul’s concern with music. Chapter One moves from a rather dense history of soul music to a rather simple discussion of subcultural capital and status, neither of which play a significant role in later chapters. Chapter Two moves into the guts of Wilson’s ethnographic work, where we see the depth of his knowledge of the routinized, mundane aspects of subcultural participation. Here he provides keen insight into how four interrelated areas of action—all-nighters (all-night club parties), travel to and from all-nighters, meeting points en route to all-nighters, and mid-week clubs/parties—converge to constitute the social fabric of subcultural participation. Through the social relationships that emerge in these areas of action, soul music and amphetamine-use emerge as the subculture’s two focal concerns. Wilson draws on a variety of scholars within the interactionist tradition including Becker, Goffman, and Matza, to frame his comprehensive analysis of meaning and engagement.

The rest of the book is thoroughly criminological. I felt a tension between a subculture studies and criminological approach to Northern Soul in the sometimes hard-to-see connections between the subculture’s focal concerns. Chapters Three and Four seemed hardly concerned with music at all, which disappears as the author turns a criminological lens toward the meaning of amphetamines and how participants learn (to justify) their use. From characterization of an amphetamine ethos to an emergent commitment to drug-use (Chapter Three), the author then proceeds to bifurcate scene participants into two groups: gradual- and rapid-adopters of amphetamines (Chapter Four). I found this discussion quite problematic, mainly because while the author’s analysis of gradual adopters was grounded in theories of socialization, commitment and neutralization, his analysis of rapid-adopters drew little on his earlier analysis of the scene. This was most evident in the author’s own words, when he admits that an understanding of “the rapid drug users appears to require a different explanation” (p. 190) than that of subcultural participation. Instead, he turns to a discussion of family instability, previous delinquency, and adolescent institutionalization. I was left feeling a lack of reconciliation between the author’s insider (Northern soul fan, drug user) and outsider (criminologist) selves, as well as a lack of explanation as to the role of Northern Soul for rapid-adopters. I would like to have been told more about the everyday lives of all these users during the 1970s rather than have been given an explanation for the rapid adoption and long-term effects of drug-use, neither of which had much to do with Northern Soul.

One final criticism has to do with the inclusion of “identity” in the title. That word seems to be everywhere these days and I’m not sure there has been a book on subculture in the last decade without “identity” in the title. The problem with many such books, Northern Soul included, is that they have little or nothing to do with identity as a sociological or psychological concept. Northern Soul is not about identity; it is about the significance of drugs, risk-taking, and their effects (short- and long-term) on the scene’s members. An everyday conception of identity is necessarily bound up in Wilson’s ethnographic approach, yet there is a distinct difference between studying identity and studying something else—this book definitely represents the latter. All said and done, Northern Soul is a very useful book for anyone interested in reading about the delinquent behaviours of youth subculturalists from a well-informed, insider’s perspective.