It was released on 21 September 1992 through PolyGram, making it the first compilation to be released after the company had acquired Polar Music, and thus the rights to the ABBA back catalogue. The 1993 audio releases include a single edit of "Eagle", a promo edit of "The Visitors" and an alternate mix of "Lovelight".

The ABBA ground-zero that’s anchored in my head lies somewhere between “Lay All Your Love on Me” and “The Winner Takes It All”: cavernous, sprightly, desperate dance-pop confections built for crying in the club. The footage is directed by film-maker Baillie Walsh, and produced by Johan Renck – best known as the Emmy-winning director of TV miniseries Chernobyl – and Svana Gisla, who worked with Renck on videos for David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar. In a 1993 essay in TIME after Gold’s American release, critic Richard Lacayo wrote that the band “was always easy to enjoy, if you could just put aside the unnerving sense that they were hastening the decline of pop music into commercial calculation and mindless buoyancy. The album sold particularly well in the United Kingdom and remains the longest charting album in the territory, becoming the first and only album to have spent 1000 weeks on the UK Albums Chart in July, 2021. It’s no surprise that as mature composers and lyricists, they came to favor crystalline melodies, dizzying arrangements and counterpoints, and over-the-top emotional gestures.In 2002, Gold: Greatest Hits was released in mainland Europe (though not in the UK) with a bonus second disc.

That fondness exists because of the real power greatest hits albums once had: They threw open doors for curious new listeners, solidified artists’ place in the canon, and transformed reputations that had fallen into disrepair. Their romantic strife was explored with great candour in songs such as The Winner Takes It All, and in the psychodramas of their final album in 1981. Its two constituent couples—Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog, and Benny Andersson and Frida Lyngstad—were either separated or divorced by the release of their final album, The Visitors, in 1981. By the time ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision contest with “Waterloo,” Andersson and Ulvaeus had each enjoyed a decade of domestic success as musicians, and Faltskog and Lyngstad were working solo artists in their own right.

Rather than issue the multiple previous compilations, PolyGram put together a new collection, optimised for the CD format. And after conquering the pop charts in dozens of countries around the world, everyone was ready for a new challenge: Andersson and Ulvaeus were dreaming of a detour into musical theater, and Faltskog and Lyngstad were curious about reviving their dormant solo careers. They wrote anthems for dancing queens and men after midnight, inadvertently adopting language that would become essential to gay life. The 1992 and 1999 editions released in Australia and New Zealand (and some other territories in that area) had a modified track listing (see below) to include three local hits, replacing three other songs on the international edition.

Listening to Gold with fresh, focused ears, I was struck by the sheer variety of sounds beneath its blinding polish. Music critic Elisabeth Vincentelli ( New York Post; Time Out New York) credits the album for a revival of critical interest in ABBA's music after ten years of neglect following the band's 1982 break-up. The original version of the disc was released on September 21, 1992 and featured 19 tracks, all of which were newly digitally remastered by Michael B. It not only highlights [Abba's] incredible popularity, but just how closely they have connected with a succession of new generations. As of July 2021, "Gold" became the first album to reach 1000 weeks on the Official Charts in United Kingdom with pure sales of 5.

There have been various versions of this evergreen compilation over the years, including a 2CD edition and a CD+DVD offering. In 2018, a TV show featuring the avatars was announced, co-produced by the BBC and NBC, which has not yet been aired.