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So Beautiful or So What is the twelfth solo studio album by American folk rock singer-songwriter Paul Simon. For the album, he reunited with former collaborator and record producer Phil Ramone. Having experimented with rhythm-based textures for much of the previous two decades, Simon returned to composing songs rather traditionally using only his acoustic guitar. These songs were further augmented by experimental recording practices in the studio. The album was largely recorded in a small cottage at Simon's home in New Canaan, Connecticut.

The music of So Beautiful or So What features West African blues-inspired guitar playing, Indian-style percussion, and experimentation with samples, which ranged from an excerpt from a 1941 sermon to nighttime ambience in Kenya. The songs were recorded with little bass but with a very large presence of bells. Much of Simon's lyrics touch on themes of spirituality and mortality, which Simon said was unintentional and resulted naturally in his songwriting process for the album.

When So Beautiful or So What was released by Hear Music on April 8, 2011, it received widespread acclaim from critics, many of whom considered it Simon's best work in two decades. It appeared on many year-end critics' lists as one of the year's best records. The album also became his highest US chart debut, reaching number four on the Billbooard 200, and charted within the top ten in nine other countries.

For So Beautiful or So What, Simon reunited with record producer and former collaborator Phil Ramone, who previously worked with him on Simon & Garfunkel's 1982 live album The Concert in Central Park. According to Simon, the reunion came casually; he told Ramone when they met each other that he was beginning to work on a new album and, as Ramone lived in the next town, they decided it would be easy to work together again. Simon recorded the album at his small cottage in New Canaan, Connecticut. The recording sessions often consisted solely of Simon, Ramone, and engineer Andy Smith. Throughout the production of the record, the album’s engineers would gradually make upgrades to the space during months off. As it was not acoustically designed or soundproofed, Smith often employed iZotope RX software to rid the recordings of extra noise, such as an oak tree above the home from which acorns fell, interrupting recordings. Keeping in line with his experimental attitude, Simon decided to record the acorns, remarking, "All sounds are musical once you start to listen." Occasionally, Simon would record in the control room instead. Like all of Simon’s output from his 1997 effort Songs from The Capeman onward, the album was recorded digitally using Pro Tools.

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