Retro Soul
Retro soul is new music made to sound like the soul records of the 1960s and 1970s, using the same instruments and recording methods.
Bands play live with drums, bass, guitar, organ and horns, and many record to analog tape to get a warm, slightly rough sound. The revival gathered pace in the late 1990s and 2000s around labels such as Daptone Records in Brooklyn and reached the charts in the mid-2000s. Unlike neo soul, which updates soul with hip hop and modern production, retro soul tries to recreate the old sound as faithfully as possible.
Artists it is known for: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley, Amy Winehouse, Leon Bridges.
- Family
- R&B & Soul
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, late 1990s
- Also called
- retro-soul, soul revival
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 1,400 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have retro soul among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Retro Soul artists
Thee Sacred Souls
Leon Bridges
Jalen Ngonda
DON WEST
Durand Jones & The IndicationsThe retro soul artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.