[81alum]

I love ARN and enjoy listening to the many variations they sneak into it. 

As for traditional marching band music, no.  What makes the Stanford Band unique is its nonconformity--its deliberate violation of the traditions of militaristic marching band music--the uniforms, the Sousa marches, ye old fight songs, etc.  It was making a statement that embraced diversity instead of conformity.

In order to keep with the spirit of the modern Band, you would think that it would need to update its music, and I would be for expansion of the repertoire in principle.  But here is the thing--the role of music in our culture has changed since 1972 when the band adopted this 1970 song.  Popular music in that era was often an act of youthful rebellion, a declaration of separation from an older, seemingly unimaginative generation.  I'm not sure that music really fills that generation-gap rebellious role now, and so you would have to search pretty hard for something from the last two years that would be the modern equivalent to 1970 era rock.   

On the other hand, as a 50 something, I would not be in a very good position to know!  Maybe we should just leave it to today's band to figure out!

[81alum]

I love ARN and enjoy listening to the many variations they sneak into it. 

As for traditional marching band music, no.  What makes the Stanford Band unique is its nonconformity--its deliberate violation of the traditions of militaristic marching band music--the uniforms, the Sousa marches, ye old fight songs, etc.  It was making a statement that embraced diversity instead of conformity.

In order to keep with the spirit of the modern Band, you would think that it would need to update its music, and I would be for expansion of the repertoire in principle.  But here is the thing--the role of music in our culture has changed since 1972 when the band adopted this 1970 song.  Popular music in that era was often an act of youthful rebellion, a declaration of separation from an older, seemingly unimaginative generation.  I'm not sure that music really fills that generation-gap rebellious role now, and so you would have to search pretty hard for something from the last two years that would be the modern equivalent to 1970 era rock.   

On the other hand, as a 50 something, I would not be in a very good position to know!  Maybe we should just leave it to today's band to figure out!