It was released by Maverick and Warner Bros. Records on November 13, 2001, coinciding with the video album, Drowned World Tour 2001.

Commercially, the compilation was successful, peaking at number seven on the US Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

In early September 2001, media reported that Madonna had recorded two songs, "Sex Makes the World Go Round" and "Veronica Electronica", to be included on the forthcoming greatest hits album.

[4] After the final show of Madonna's Drowned World Tour on September 15, 2001, MTV News confirmed that the singer had planned to release a greatest hits album in November 2001.

[6] A sequel to her first greatest hits album, The Immaculate Collection (1990), GHV2 included fifteen singles released during Madonna's second decade in the recording industry, starting from "Erotica" (1992) to "What It Feels Like for a Girl" (2001).

Despite being a worldwide number-one hit in 2000, "American Pie" was not included because Madonna had regretted putting it on her eighth studio album, Music (2000).

[17] However, in December, Madonna made an appearance at the 2001 Turner Prize award ceremony and mentioned that she "had a new record in stores called GHV2".

Chris Cox from Thunderpuss explained, "Basically, they were doing the greatest-hits album... and so they approached actually a couple of different remix entities to take a stab at doing a megamix, and it was kind of a cattle call, actually.

[14][21] Chuck Taylor from Billboard complimented the remix, saying that "its quite a trip down 80s memory lane from an artist whose continually evolving body of work stands strong—even when summarized in this novel context.

Music journalist Robert Christgau gave a positive review, stating that Madonna "gleans goodies from the overrated Bedtime Stories and Ray of Light, mixes in the glorious soundtrack-only 'Beautiful Stranger' and the dismal soundtrack-only 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina', and hands it all over to Mirwais for sonic tweaking I'm not interested enough to pin down", while calling it as "an essential package".

[27] A writer from the South Wales Echo gave a positive review, saying that GHV2 is "an essential pop album" and "truly immaculate".

[34] MusicOMH's Michael Hubbard complimented the inclusion of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" from Evita and "Beautiful Stranger" from the Austin Powers sequel The Spy Who Shagged Me, saying that they "are worthy inclusions... compiling this collection didn't require much imagination, the end result does the job—the CD is exactly what it says on the tin.

"[35] John Aizlewood from The Guardian gave the compilation four out of five stars, stating: "GHV2 is sufficiently confident to avoid remixes or new tracks.

[36] Cristine Leach from Raidió Teilifís Éireann gave the compilation 4 out of 5 stars, saying that "[Madonna] is still the queen of pop and GHV2 is essential listening.

[37] Giving the album 8 on 10, Alex Needham from NME criticized the compilation's lack of new tracks, and said "while far from immaculate, this is still quite a collection".

[1] About GHV2, New Straits Times' Christie Leo commented that "this second volume of greatest hits isn't as immediately accessible as the first.

[38] AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave a mixed review calling it "slightly disappointing", justifying that it was because during the 1990s, Madonna was an album artist.

[53] The album was present for a total of 33 weeks inside the chart, and was certified double platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

[59][61] It had moderate performance in New Zealand where it debuted at number eight on the Recorded Music NZ's album chart, and received a gold certification for shipment of 7,500 copies.

[63] GHV2 was the 14th best-selling album of 2001, selling 4.9 million copies worldwide in that year according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).