What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World

Critical

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 Boston Globe described the album as one of the band's "most enjoyable and lively efforts in recent memory", The New York Times noted that What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World "strikes a note of pop concision and maturity, building on what worked on ‘The King Is Dead.’ Lyrically, there are fewer thistles and minarets and palanquins—and, musically, less digressive excess—than once made up the Decemberists’ trademark style." Jeremy Larson of Pitchfork Media was a detractor, bemoaning the album as "overlong and under-ambitious", though appreciating that listeners "start to see Meloy himself more than ever". Larson also wrote highly of "Make You Better", stating "The band has never lacked the musical bona fides to write a great anthem."

Commercial

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.

Track listing

All songs written by Colin Meloy.

Personnel

According to the liner notes of What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World.

The Decemberists

Additional musicians

Production