Everything Must Go is the fourth studio album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers, released on 20 May 1996 by Epic Records.

[9] Producer Mike Hedges was the person the group had in mind since The Holy Bible in part for his production role on Siouxsie and the Banshees' single "Swimming Horses" of which Bradfield was a fan.

[11] Subjects tackled on the album include the life of photographer Kevin Carter, in the song of the same name; Willem de Kooning in "Interiors"; and the maltreatment of animals in captivity in "Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky" (which is a quote from the film The Best Years of Our Lives).

[15] In the 10th anniversary edition, Bradfield stated that the song suited the mood of the album and reminds him of when Wire and Edwards used to write lyrics together.

"The Girl Who Wanted to Be God" has a title which can be traced to a specific quote by American poet Sylvia Plath, it is the most anthemic and opened song in the album, featuring the most hopeful sound of the twelve tracks, according to the band.

[15] Allegedly a one-take live studio recording that had very little time spent on it, "Removables" was another song whose lyrics were written by Edwards, it has once again a reference to his self-harm, like in the line "broken hands never ending".

[15] It was inspired by a documentary on De Kooning's experience of suffering the condition, which apparently left him unable to remember what he had painted.

[18] As for "No Surface All Feeling" part of the guitar was recorded by Edwards, and Wire describes the lyrics as a tender end to the album, as the song reflects the pain of losing a friend.

[21] The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry awarded the album with a Platinum certification, for sales above one million copies.

An additional DVD, featuring music videos, live performances, TV appearances, a 45-minute documentary on the making of the album, and two films by Patrick Jones, completed the three-disc set.

[26] The CD insert bears a quote from Jackson Pollock: "The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state and attempt to point out the direction of the future – without arriving there completely".

[36] Writing for Q magazine in June 1996, Tom Doyle felt that Everything Must Go had "little in common" with its predecessor, The Holy Bible, and saw the album as a return to, and improvement upon, the "epic pop-rock" sound of Gold Against the Soul.

[32] He noted the band's choice of producer, Mike Hedges, as a possible contributing factor to the overall change in sound, and drew parallels to the lyrics of Kurt Cobain and the "reverb-laden" music of Phil Spector.

[32] Nicholas Barber of The Independent described Everything Must Go as "the most immediate, assured and anthemic British hard rock album since Oasis's Definitely Maybe", noting that the record was more accessible when comparing it to the "crushingly heavy-going" sound of The Holy Bible, especially, he noted, for a band "who once would have spat at the breadhead, corporate-sell-out idea of a hummable ditty.

"[35] Rolling Stone critic David Fricke called Everything Must Go the "most underrated album of the year", describing it as "a record of painstaking melodic craft and thundering execution, a proclamation of physical and emotional cleansing – up to a point.

"[38] In a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote: "Above all, Everything Must Go is a cathartic experience – it is genuinely moving to hear the Manics offering hope without sinking to mawkish sentimentality or collapsing under the weight of their situation.

"[13] Reviewing the 10th anniversary edition, Dave Simpson of The Guardian said that the album "achieved the zenith of the Welshmen's original ambition: to conquer the mainstream with anger, art and soul.

"[39] Writing for Sputnikmusic, Nick Butler concluded that "Everything Must Go is a stellar album, stuffed with great, anthemic songs, and it's a rewarding listening experience.

Somehow lumped into the latter stages of Britpop at the time, this record remains one of the decade's finest releases and is an essential listen.

"[56] In 2015 the band announced that they were going to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album with their biggest headline show since 1999, at Liberty Stadium, Swansea on 28 May 2016.

[58] In early 2016 the band announced European dates for the tour in Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.