Enough has been written about the importance of this album and how it has stood the test of time. It says something about this listener's growth, at least; when I first heard Exposure in high school, I called it the biggest waste of talent on record, given the roster of musicians playing on it yet the distinctly non-Crimson results. But I wasn't ready for punk rock, I suppose, and Fripp was - hence this stellar effort (as I grew to see it within a couple of years!) that fuses New York avant-garde, punk (in spirit if not in yobbish playing), ambient music, and - yes - even a touch of King Crimson (in the devastating Breathless). And I was too young and uninformed to know anything about the fight between Fripp and RCA record boss Tommy Mottola over Daryl Hall being the main vocalist on the album, with Fripp's loss in this tiny power struggle resulting in Peter Hammill, Terre Roche, and Peter Gabriel sharing the vocal duties.

That said, I'll aim my comments at this reissue. In a nutshell, Fripp does the same thing here that he's done before, producing the same infuriating results: he tampers with the original artifact to reflect his present attitude towards it, instead of just reissuing the recording as first released. I find it as frustrating now as I did when he remixed Exposure in 1985, just the same as with individual discs within the various generations of Crimson reissues, whether earlier, like Islands and Larks' Tongues (where tiny changes produced annoying results) or more recent, like Discipline and Three Of A Perfect Pair (with bonus tracks that marred the spirit of the record in the first case and radically improved it in the second).

The first disc is the original LP mix of Exposure, so that's great; it's now on CD, with all its unique moments restored: the fast fade of Disengage, Terre Roche's dismissive "Hah!" at the end of the title track (which once more ends on "X"), the much longer narrative at the end of Haaden Two (including the wonderfully paradoxical "Both the things weren't true; that's definitely true"), and probably a few more subtle differences I missed the first time around. Putting the various versions side by side, the original mix is thicker and grubbier, but still my favorite. Punk rock, right?

Disc two is where the problems start. Take note - spoiler alert! According to Fripp's typically discursive (but ultimately informative) liner notes, the original idea was to repackage the 1983/85 remix/reissue with the unreleased Daryl Hall vocals as bonus tracks. Of course, Fripp then decided to redo things to "create" a version of the album as he originally mooted it. This mix, therefore, is basically that 1985 version, but with Hall's lead vocals substituting for all the Peter Hammill vocals except I May Not Have Had Enough of Me -- hence Disengage (with almost entirely new lyrics, possibly improvised and basically rubbish) and Chicago -- and for Terre Roche's vocals on Exposure. Peter Gabriel remains as the voice of Flood and Roche as Mary. The Hammill versions as they appeared on the first remix are now shunted to the end as extra tracks, except for his take on Chicago, which is dropped entirely, though you get a separate Daryl Hall vocal version of Mary and a duet of Hammill (fine) and Roche (awful, sorry) on Chicago. The labelling of the 1985 versions as "alternate" is disingenous, to say the least.

So how about those Hall vocals, resurrected after all these years? Frankly, they're not that good. I recognize the punk ethos teeming in the mix and Hall's determined need to shrug off his pop star status and go with the artistic spirit of that remarkable age, and it's well established that Fripp was caught up in it too, which shaped the sessions into this resulting album. But honestly, the tracks aren't comparable to the official release. Chicago works well enough - the blues are the blues, after all, though I still prefer Hammill's menace on the familiar version. And Hammill is simply much better at channeling the fury and edge of 1979; he'd been capable of being a proto-punk screamer (with Bowie and John Lydon on record as endorsing him) well before Hall was even singing Sarah Smile, thus Disengage loses everything in its "new " version. This is not to slight Hall, who's talented, just a bit out of his depth: his take on Mary is fine, though little different in spirit to Roche's, and he does sterling work on the title track -- though still not a patch on Roche's utter nutcase delivery on the original. NY3 (retitled here) is the one real success, but basically it's a different song so can't be compared; it loses its Hells Kitchen found vocal and has proper lyrics sung by Hall over the instrumental track; they're good, and the results are similar in sprit to NY3NY on Hall's Sacred Songs, which put new words to "I May Not Have Had Enough Of Me." It's certainly the high point of fresh Hall material on this record.

My position is this; fans would have been better served if the second disc had been the 1985 remix with the unreleased Hall versions as bonus tracks, but I suppose that's too much the industry way of doing things for Fripp to go along with, and he had a chance to assemble something close to how he envisioned it originally. It's just not as good. Fripp hints at acknowledging that in the liner notes when he observes that Mottola's stubbornness caused him to take the album in a different direction, with the results as we know them, and that fans can reassemble the familiar album through programming regardless. This assertion isn't true, by the way -- that we can put back together the 1985 album he decided not to reissue here -- because he leaves off the 1985 Hammill version of Chicago, which was a different vocal take to the 1979 mix. Instead we get the unreleased duet, which as I've noted is less than successful; Terre Roche tries for her Yoko Ono thing again but this time sounds like she's being strangled on the fade-out. Of course, the irony here is that Fripp was right as much as he was wrong. You get the original version in all its scruffy glory and you can create a version of the 1985 mix if you want (which I've done), but only with the help of an earlier reissue to get what's missing. So there you go!

OK, just a few words on the package. The liner notes are excerpts from his diaries, which explain choices in mixing, etc. but aren't useful for quick reference. The pictures are great, if not always the best quality: newspaper reprints, unused cover concepts, a work-up of some attempted remake of Alphaville with Debbie Harry. The best element is the musician credits; finally, you get a clear list of players for each song. Fans may want to learn that Levin is the bassist throughout (not John Wetton), Phil Collins and Jerry Marrotta drum on a couple of tracks each, and on everything else (Breathless, Disengage, NY3, and I May Not Have Had Enough) is latter-day Mahavishnu Orchestra drummer Narada Michael Walden, which helps explain why Breathless in particular is like some ferocious outtake from Red. And that's Sid McGinniss playing the massive funk riff of Exposure, because Robert just could never do that sort of stuff, could he?

If you buy the Japanese version, you also get two separate sleeves, just like the LPs (a single one for the 1979 version, a gatefold for 1985), plus a postcard, an OBI, and a Japanese booklet. Very nicely done, in fact.

A curio fans may want to find, I also have an Italian/Indian (?) re-release of Exposure from 2006 that just preceded the double reissue (VH Records, RFCD 01010202). Its mix is the 1983/85 version and the package is a single-sleeve mini LP, with a redundant booklet that provides in larger type everything on the inner sleeve (also included). Nice for the aging audience who might now wear bifocals. The real gem, though, is a much longer (by nearly 2 minutes!) take on Water Music 2. This is not a merging of 1 and 2, I should stress, but a longer track that show how the familiar version actually fades in about half way though. Nothing radically different, just more loops, but a surprise and a real treat once I figured it out.

After reading the preceding reviews and thinking frequently about this album that I had enjoyed so much (hard to believe!) twenty five years ago, I was still unprepared for the tremendous power and integrity of the music on this album. There is enormous creative and artistic depth and ingenuity in the tracks on this CD and the range of beautiful, powerful and thought-provoking music is just as enthralling to listen to now as it was when it was new.

My advice is to focus on the "third edition" recordings, which seem to have more sonic depth and fullness. But the combination of tracks is truly a great artistic achievement and one that will repay many listenings. The alternate takes reveal fascinating variations on these compositions and overall provide interesting insights into the music and the performers. The surprising contrasts between performances by Terre Roche and Daryl Hall of the same songs is revealing and interesting.

Overall one is left with the perception of Robert Fripp as a true artist and creator of a recording that has definitely stood the to of time.

I'm a big fan of his work with KC, etc..have a lot of his stuff.
And I recognize the genius at work here. I orginall bought this in 1980? and subsequently concluded it wasn't for me and gave it away.
After 30 years I decided to revisit this. It has grown on me a bit, but I'm not listening much.
It's a great presentation and comes with loads or bonus materials. And it's cool checking out Darryl Hall on this.
Just make sure you give it a thorough listen if you are not familiar. It's groundbreaking, it's genius, it's Fripp at his most innovative and orignal (as few are)..but it's not very melodic.

Excellent if you like Fripp's music, not for everyone, definitely an acquired taste. It arrived quickly, minor damage to the jewel box, but luckily, I have a few empty jewel boxes that I can use to replace the damaged one.