Skeletal Family is the name of an English Goth Rock and band which was formed in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in December 1982.
Note the present tense "is": like most of the original "positive-punk" bands, they haven't remained intact throughout all these years. The five-man lineup disbanded for the first time in 1985, when Anne-Marie Hurst left to form the band Ghost Dance with Gary Marx, who is better known for his work as guitarist and co-founder of The Sisters of Mercy. The band re-formed with the same name sometime in the mid-2000's (once Goth had become cool again), but with a bad case of both The Band Minus the Face and It's the Same, Now It Sucks! which caused them to disband again in 2009. Then Anne-Marie Hurst made a comeback in 2010, released one solo album, and rejoined Skeletal Family along with the other two founding members and two new musicians, so that the current lineup is now three-fifths the original band.
Not to be confused with Skeletal Tropes:
- Broken Bird: Possibly the girl sung about in "Streetlight."
- Cover Version:
- "Stand By Me."
- Ghost Dance examples: "Heart Full Of Soul," "Can The Can," and "Radar Love."
- Also the Batman theme song.
- The Cover Changes the Gender: Some pronouns about a love interest were changed from female to male for the aforementioned cover of The Yardbirds' "Heart Full of Soul."
- Dem Bones: They call their logo "Skellie Man."
- Don't Go in the Woods: "Trees."
- The '80s:
- Don't forget the subcultures!
- '80s Hair: Anne-Marie Hurst sported the "deathhawk" variant throughout most of the decade, but the cover of Ghost Dance's album Word to the Wise shows her with a more conventionally huge hairdo.
- Genre Mashup: As could be expected from an early gothic rock band.
- Goth Rock
- Intercourse with You:
- "The Night."
- Every single Ghost Dance song ever released is this.
- Shout-Out: They took their band name from David Bowie's song "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family."
- Step Up to the Microphone: The version of "So Sure" appearing on Burning Oil is sung (growled?) by some of the male band members.
- Woman Scorned: "She Cries Alone." Anne-Marie doesn't take on this role, though; the song is written about in third and second person ("she cries, she'll get you, she'll tantalize").
