Everything Must Go

Mike Hedges was the producer the band had in mind since The Holy Bible, partly for his work on Siouxsie and the Banshees' single "Swimming Horses". They recorded at Hedges' own studio in Domfront en Poiraie, France, which held a mixing desk from Abbey Road Studios. Bradfield said the drum sound was crucial, citing records by the Cure, Joy Division, Wire, Magazine and the Banshees where everything starts with the drums. Wire said the sonic basis was the Wall of Sound productions of Phil Spector. The working title was Sounds in the Grass, after paintings by Jackson Pollock. The title Everything Must Go comes from a play by Patrick Jones, Wire's brother.

In a 2016 interview with The Quietus, Bradfield recalled that the band arrived in France to begin the album and had a deadline the next morning to deliver their cover of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" to War Child. He said it forced them to get started. Five songs carry lyrics by Edwards, the last time that happened until Journal for Plague Lovers. Part of the rhythm guitar on "No Surface All Feeling" had been recorded by Edwards before his disappearance. The other songs lean on Wire's interest in history and politics: "Kevin Carter" concerns the photographer, "Interiors (Song for Willem de Kooning)" the painter, and "Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky" animals in captivity. Wire said it was the most un-Manics the band had been about an album, and then the most successful.

It debuted and peaked at number 2 in the UK with 60,000 copies in its first week. It was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and won the Brit Award for Best British Album. Dave Simpson wrote in The Guardian that it "achieved the zenith of the Welshmen's original ambition: to conquer the mainstream with anger, art and soul." The album was performed in full on a 2016 anniversary tour that ended at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea.