A moderniser of Northern soul music in the UK, and a developer of the style of hi-NRG, he has written and produced records with sales totalling over 40 million.
[2] Levine was born into a Jewish family; his parents owned and ran the "Lemon Tree" complex in Blackpool, including its casino and nightclub.
[2] Having attended some early Northern soul all-nighters at "The Twisted Wheel" nightclub in Manchester with DJ Les Cokell,[2][3] after leaving school in 1971 he became a disc jockey at the Blackpool Mecca with Tony Jebb.
[2] Opening on 6 December 1979, Levine became the club's first resident DJ at London's gay disco Heaven on its set-up,[2][9] and remained there through almost all of the 1980s.
The first record from the label was "So Many Men, So Little Time" by Miquel Brown,[21] which sold two million copies and got to number 2 on the American Dance Club Songs chart.
[2] This was quickly followed by "High Energy" by Evelyn Thomas, Levine's biggest hit, selling more than 7 million copies worldwide.
[25] He also mixed numerous dance-pop hits for a variety of artists, including Pet Shop Boys, Bucks Fizz, Erasure, Kim Wilde, Bronski Beat, Amanda Lear, Bananarama, Tiffany, Dollar and Hazell Dean.
[2] Initially distributed by PRT, then Pacific, Charly and finally Total/BMG, the label ended in the 1992 due to severe financial losses,.
Following the financial failure of Motorcity Records,[2] Levine wrote and produced hi-NRG-derived singles for various bands, including Take That (he co-produced three tracks on their debut album, incl.
[36] After a hiatus of 12 years, Levine released his 10th album on the label, "Northern Soul 2024" in March 2024[37] which saw him reform a songwriting partnership with his previous collaborator from the 1970s and 80s, Fiachra Trench.
Ian Levine is known as a long running fan of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.
[44] Levine also organised a private project to recreate the incomplete 1979 Doctor Who story Shada with animation and newly recorded dialogue from many surviving cast members.
He also co-wrote the theme music for K-9 and Company, a pilot for a proposed Doctor Who spin-off series featuring the robotic dog and Sarah Jane Smith.
In October 2017, Levine received criticism for his negative reaction to the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, with some deeming his comments sexist.
[53] Levine also claimed that a storyline for the unmade Season 23 story Yellow Fever and How to Cure It was written, but Bignell has noted that there is no evidence such a storyline document was commissioned from Robert Holmes,[54] and also took issue with Levine's claim that the Rani would not have been featured in the said story if created, as documentation exists to show permission was received from Pip and Jane Baker to use the Rani.