[8][9] One of the first indie groups to draw heavy influence from funk as well as disco and Latin percussion,[10][11] the band were among the first to debut on Tony Wilson's Factory Records in 1979 with "All Night Party," produced by Martin Hannett.
The band was formed by vocalist Simon Topping and guitarist and electronics player Peter Terrell, who after initially performing as a duo, were soon joined by bassist and vocalist Jez Kerr and then guitarist and trumpeter Martin Moscrop, the band played without a drummer for a year.
[13] The band's name is taken from the lyric of Brian Eno's song "The True Wheel" from his solo studio album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974).
[14] Their early influences included the Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk,[15] the Pop Group, Pere Ubu,[16] Wire, Brian Eno,[17] Parliament, Funkadelic, and Earth, Wind & Fire.
[18] A Certain Ratio, by early 1979, were "beginning to forge links between post-punk industrial and dance-floor funk" (Tony Wilson, Factory Records).
[19] ACR's line-up, with a dark bass-heavy industrial and funk sound, recorded the group's debut single, "All Night Party", released by Factory Records in September 1979 (the label's first single artist release),[6] with Factory label boss Tony Wilson also becoming their manager, proclaiming the band to be "the new Sex Pistols".
There are suggestions that watching ACR perform encouraged lead vocalist David Byrne and Talking Heads to go in a more funky musical direction.
[25] Martin Moscrop started a second band in 1980, Swamp Children (the name later changed to Kalima), that would go on to share several members with A Certain Ratio.
46 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart,[29] and the band expanded to a six-piece with the addition of former Occult Chemistry vocalist Martha Tilson, with Topping focusing on trumpet and percussion.
[20][28] To Each... represents a development in the ACR sound from the raw harshness of The Graveyard and the Ballroom to a percussion-based post-punk funk.
The band's recent stay in New York had increased the Latin, jazz and Cuban percussion influences in their music.
[28] The group recorded a third Peel session in November, now without Tilson, but with Andy Connell added on keyboards and percussion.
[22] Simon Topping recorded a solo single before forming T-Coy with former Quando Quango (and later M People member) Mike Pickering.
[20] The band regrouped and returned in October 1983 with the single "I Need Someone Tonight" (with Carol McKenzie on vocals), another top-10 indie hit.
[20] Tony Quigley of Kalima joined on saxophone, and the band released three singles in late 1984 and 1985 – "Life's a Scream" (December 1984), "Brazilia" (February 1985) and "Wild Party" (June 1985).
[33] The Old and the New, a compilation album bringing together many of the non-album singles released from ACR's formation up to the end of 1985, came out on Factory Records in January 1986.
[33] Connell left in 1985 to form Swing Out Sister, whose lead vocalist Corinne Drewery guested on ACR's next studio album, Force (1986), their last for Factory, released in November 1986.
[20][40][9] In 1994, Creation Records began reissuing the band's albums on the Rev-Ola sub-label, and also released two EPs of remixes.
Towards the end of 2009, the band announced a live appearance at a fund-raising event at Brighton's Concorde 2 venue on 7 March 2010.
[1][43][44] In November 2018 they recorded a session for Marc Riley's BBC Radio 6 Music show, performing new song "Dirty Boy", "Mickey Way", and "Flight".
The band are featured in the biographical comedy drama film 24 Hour Party People (2002) where Tony Wilson (played by Steve Coogan) describes them as "having all the energy of Joy Division but better clothes".