Mike Oldfield – Exposed (1979)

This is another Mike Oldfield album that I got from my father's vinyl collection. It's a double live album with only three songs on it. Tells quite a lot about Oldfield's songs. I do like some of Oldfield's music, but on normal studio albums, the sounds can be a bit too clean and neat. The live setting makes these songs come alive a bit more. You can hear the actual instruments a bit better. Also, I think it's very impressive to hear all the string arrangements etc. on this album thinking that it was originally played live. The list of musicians is almost 50 persons long. Finnish readers will probably find it interesting that Pekka Pohjola plays bass on this album. I never knew they had collaborated. Pekka Pohjola is one of the most well-known bass players in Finland. There's also a film about this tour, which is why there's that bit of film in the front cover.



Mike Oldfield is a prime example of a multi-instrumentalist. His songs contain usually full orchestration along with various synthesisers, guitar effects and medieval style whistles. In the 1980s, Oldfield's music came closer to the mainstream, which in the 80s meant quite plastic rock sounds and I'm not much of a fan of those albums. I like these 70s albums a lot more. They somehow sound more authentic. Even more so on the live album.

The first two halves of this double album consist of just one song, Incantations (Parts 1 to 4). The song has many different parts, but the tempo and rhythm mostly stay quite steady. Different choir and string arrangements give the otherwise futuristic synth and guitar driven prog rock nice uniqueness. The third half opens with Oldfield's most well-known song Tubular Bells, that was also played in the hit film The Exorcist. This live version is quite different from the original, even if it is very recognisable. I think I've heard that Oldfield was rarely contempt with his recordings for long periods of time and that made him renew his old songs over and over again. There are many different versions of Tubular Bells. This one is somewhat softer and more organic than the original. The song continues on the last side of the album, but that half is split between the ending of Tubular Bells and "only" a six minute song Guilty. The song fits seamlessly on this album and the mood doesn't really change that much.

As I mentioned before, there's a video linked to this album as well. You can find some live footage on youtube. This is a filmatisation of the second disc of the album, containing Tubular Bells and Guilty. It's even more interesting to watch this music live. You can see the amazingly large line-up they used. Even though I'm not the biggest Oldfield fan myself, it would've been quite amazing to be at this gig.

I never used to understand live albums before. I always felt like they were just subpar versions of the studio albums. Recently, however, I've come across some really amazing live albums where you can hear the atmosphere a lot better than on studio albums. It takes you a bit closer to how it was for the bands and artists to play those songs. Exposed is a very good performance of some of Oldfield's best known works and as such, it's among the best albums I own by him.

Listen to the album on Youtube: Sides 1 & 2, Sides 3 & 4