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
I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World) critiquing the naïveté of such postwar optimism in America and the Western world. The "76" referred to in the song is 1976, the U.S. Bicentennial year. "I.G.Y." debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 9, 1982 at number 56. It reached the top 40 on October 30 and eventually peaked at number 26 on November 27, 1982. It also reached number 8 on "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart, number 17 on "Billboard" Mainstream Rock chart, and number 54 on "Billboard" R&B Singles chart. It was Fagen's only solo Top 40 hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. It was nominated