[citation needed] Rather than issue the multiple previous compilations, PolyGram put together a new collection, optimized for the CD format.

[4] This new release was compiled by PolyGram International’s Chris Griffin and Jackie Stansfield, Polydor UK’s George McManus, Ingemar Bergman of Sweden Music and Polar in Sweden, and music journalist John Tobler, who also wrote the album's liner notes.

[4] Chris Griffin tried to sequence the tracks as if it were a radio show: the album starts with "Dancing Queen", the band's most famous song, and then journeys through ballads, fun hits and dance classics, before it ends with "Waterloo", a nod to the group’s international breakthrough in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.

[15] Writing for Pitchfork in 2019, reviewer Jamieson Cox agreed, describing Gold: Greatest Hits as a "refined package with surprising emotional range".

The album, he wrote, "capitalized on a simmering, subcultural interest in ABBA’s work and sparked a full-blown revival" that culminated in the Mamma Mia!

[16] BuzzFeed music editor Matthew Perpetua included Gold: Greatest Hits among the compilations he considered "so well curated in presenting a fertile period of a career that they are arguably an artist's definitive work".

[17] Former Rolling Stone magazine writer Tom Moon included Gold: Greatest Hits among his 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, describing the tracks as "models of impeccable craft", adding that the album is "an excellent starter kit for those wanting to investigate the DNA of post-Beatles pop.

"[18] Writing for Vanity Fair, singer-songwriter Elvis Costello included Gold: Greatest Hits among his list of 500 essential albums.

[20] In January 2025, it was awarded 22× Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry, denoting 6.6 million album-equivalent unit in the UK.

[25][26] In Canada, Gold: Greatest Hits achieved Diamond status (one million units sold) in May, 2000.