What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World is the seventh studio album from The Decemberists, released on January 20, 2015. The album's title comes from a line in the song "12/17/12", a reference to the date of Barack Obama's speech in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and lead singer Colin Meloy's conflicting feelings about the shooting and his happy personal life. "What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World" received mostly positive reviews. It currently has a metascore of 77 and user score of 8.1 from Metacritic. "The
What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World of "Make You Better", stating "The band has never lacked the musical bona fides to write a great anthem." The album debuted at No. 7 on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart on its release, selling around 50,000 copies in the United States in its first week. It also debuted at No. 2 on "Billboard"'s Top Rock Albums, and No. 1 on the Folk Albums chart. The album has sold 123,000 copies in the United States as of October 2015. All songs written by Colin Meloy. According to the liner notes of "What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World". What