Northern Soul is a style of music with associated dance styles and fashions that developed in the north of England in the late 1960s. In the beginning the dancing was athletic, featuring spins, flips, and drops. The music originally consisted of obscure American soul recordings with an uptempo beat, very similar to and including Tamla Motown, plus more obscure labels (e.g. Okeh) from cities like Detroit and Chicago. By 1970 British performers were recording numbers for this market, and the scarcity of soul records with the required beat led to the playing of stompers, or records by any artist which featured the right beat.

Early Northern Soul fashion included bowling shirts, button-down collar shirts, blazers with centre vents and unusual numbers of buttons, and baggie trousers. Many dancers belonged to clubs organized by dance halls and wore club badges issued at each dance.

Foremost among the original clubs were those at the Torch in Stoke, Wigan Casino , the Blackpool Mecca, the Mojo in Sheffield, and the Twisted Wheel in Manchester.

In later years, Northern Soul became synonymous with the Motown Sound.