Released at the height of Britpop in the mid-1990s, the album was a commercial and critical success, it reached its peak in the UK on separate occasions, debuting and peaking at number 2 in the UK Albums Chart and earned the band accolades in the 1997 Brit Awards. It represented a shift in the group's sound due to Edwards' departure. The album charted in mainland Europe, Asia and Australia, eventually selling over two million copies, the album spawned four singles "A Desing For Life", "Everything Must Go", "Kevin Carter", "Further Away" & "Australia."
According to singer-songwriter James Dean Bradfield said that the sound of the drums was crucial on the album to set the tone. He was inspired by the works of several bands, "I loved records like Pornography by The Cure and Joy Division records and Wire records and Magazine records and Siouxsie and the Banshees records and Wah! records and Associates records where everything starts with the drums". 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.
The working title of the album was Sounds in the Grass, named after a series of paintings by Jackson Pollock. Everything Must Go takes its name from a play by Patrick Jones, Nicky Wire's brother. Everything Must Go represents a change of style for the band. Their previous album, The Holy Bible, had been a stark, disturbing album with a minimal amount of instrumentation, whilst this album embraces synths and strings with an anthemic rock style, has a more commercial feel and fits with the Britpop movement that was prevalent at the time.
The lyrical focus of the album is also shifted, due in part to Edwards' departure. Instead of introspective and autobiographical tracks such as "4st 7lb", Wire's predilection for historical and political themes dominates; however, five songs feature Edwards' lyrics – the last time his lyrics would feature in a Manics album until 2009's Journal for Plague Lovers.
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). The latter track, with lyrics by Edwards, can also be interpreted as an exploration of his mental state before his disappearance; the line "Here chewing your tail is joy" for instance may be as much about Edwards's self-harm as it is the tormented self-injury of zoo animals.
Part of the rhythm guitar on "No Surface All Feeling" was recorded by Edwards before his disappearance, making it only the second time that Edwards' guitar-work was present on a Manic Street Preachers recorded track (the other instance being "La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)" on Gold Against the Soul). Bradfield typically performs all the guitar parts for their recordings.
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