Kaye conceived the project as a series of roughly eight LP installments focusing on different US regions, but Elektra convinced him that one double album would be more commercially viable.

Kaye was unsure whether Elektra Records would put out the album, so he threw his favorite songs together and made them fit into a concept.

[6] Speaking in 2017, Kaye reflected "I would've made it more 'garage rock' as opposed to these kind of weirder things, like Sagittarius or even the Blues Project.

Many other compilation albums took their cue from Nuggets, including the Pebbles, Rubble - 20 volumes of mainly UK 1960s-era psychedelia released in the 1980s - and Back From the Grave series.

Nuggets spawned an entire cottage industry of small record labels dedicated to unearthing and releasing obscure but worthy garage and psychedelic rock music from the 1960s.

Contrary to popular belief, many of the songs were American Top 40 hits: more than a third of the original Nuggets would fall into that category, while Rhino's expanded set featured such smash hits as "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock (#1), "Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen (#2), "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (#2), "Little Bit o' Soul" by the Music Explosion (#2), and "Time Won't Let Me" by the Outsiders (#5).

Available in double LP and digital formats, this version included updated release notes from Kaye and Jac Holzman.

While the original Nuggets focused on the American scene, the second compilation shifted its focus to the rest of the world, collecting cuts from the United Kingdom (such as the Pretty Things and Small Faces), Australia (the Easybeats), New Zealand (the La De Da's), Canada (the Guess Who and The Haunted), Japan (the Mops), Iceland (Thor's Hammer), Peru (We All Together), and Brazil (Os Mutantes).