[5] Originally planned to be titled To Die For and was due for release on 1 May 2020 but was delayed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the album was promoted by the singles "My Oasis", "Diamonds" and "Kids Again".

Love Goes debuted in the top-ten on various official charts, including in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Switzerland.

"Smith opened a pop-up store in Soho, London named after the album in February 2020 before the release of the single "To Die For".

The hands on the album cover belong to Smith's "chosen family", Shea Diamond, Alok Menon, Jeff Hova, and Madison Phillips.

In terms of production, Petridis said the album did differ from Smith's previous work in that it swapped "retro-soul afflictions" for "misty pop-facing electronics, gentle tropical house shadings and Auto-Tuned backing vocals".

[22] Robin Murray of Clash awarded the album six out of ten, calling it "a tale of heartbreak that could benefit from focus", noting that the track listing contained 17 songs and although there were some "exemplary pop moments", "it struggles to maintain momentum".

[20] Similarly, The Independent's Fiona Sturges referred to Love Goes as one of the "reasonable break-up albums you're likely to hear" and that you would "long for it to land a few punches".

Elsewhere in the review, Sturges said "For the most part, the mood here is pensive, the ballads plentiful and the pace glacial, with little evidence of the wild abandon that the singer supposedly longs for.

"[24] In writing a review for The New York Times, Jon Pareles was more complimentary, focussing on Smith's voice, calling it "a prodigious instrument: a pearly, androgynous croon, at once powerful and defenseless."

Noting Smith's work with familiar collaborators (Jimmy Napes, Guy Lawrence and Stargate, amongst others), Pareles said "they built neatly structured, immediately legible pop tracks that open up arena-sized reverberations and sometimes beckon toward the dance floor.

[1] Entertainment Weekly's Leah Greenblatt was also complimentary of the album, saying "the record remains rooted in a sort of open-vein vulnerability; the bruised, tender manifesto of a Kid Who Cares Too Much."

[28] In the United Kingdom Love Goes debuted at number two on the Official Albums Chart, stopped by Positions by Ariana Grande published in the same week.