GHV2 (an abbreviation of Greatest Hits Volume 2) is the second greatest hits album by American singer Madonna. It was released by Maverick and Warner Bros. Records on November 13, 2001, coinciding with the video album, Drowned World Tour 2001. A follow-up to The Immaculate Collection (1990), GHV2 contains a collection of singles during the second decade of Madonna's career. Madonna mentioned that she only included "songs that I could listen to five times in a row" on it. The album did not contain any new songs, but a promotional single titled "GHV2 Megamix" was released, which contained remixes by Thunderpuss, John Rocks & Mac Quayle and Tracy Young. A promotional remix album was also issued, titled GHV2 Remixed: The Best of 1991–2001.
GHV2 received generally positive reviews from music critics, who deemed it an essential compilation, although some criticized the absence of new material. 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). Elsewhere, GHV2 also attained success, reaching the top five in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and several other European countries. It was the 14th best-selling album of the year and has sold more than seven million units worldwide.
Background and development
thumb|left|upright|alt=Madonna during a show wearing an all black outfit and an American flag kilt|Madonna performing at the [[Drowned World Tour whose video album was released alongside GHV2]]
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 a forthcoming greatest hits album. The last title was from an unreleased remix album in collaboration with William Orbit. It was also reported that the album would be titled The Immaculate Collection 2. However, both the title and new song rumors were proven false. After the final show of Madonna's Drowned World Tour on September 15, 2001, MTV News confirmed that the singer planned to release a greatest hits album in November 2001. On October 4, 2001, Maverick Records announced the track list of GHV2 as well as its official release date. The album coincided with the release of the DVD/VHS video album of the tour.
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, spanning "Erotica" (1992) to "What It Feels Like for a Girl" (2001). Unlike the former release, GHV2 did not feature any new material. In an interview with BBC's Jo Whiley, Madonna spoke about the selection of the tracks stating, "I like 'Fever', alright. But you know, the thing is they had to have listening power for me. I had to be able to listen to them five times in a row and think this is really good, this is a well written song, it's really well produced." She also added that "If you listen to the record, you can really see my evolution as a singer, songwriter, and, more important, a human being." Several of her popular singles of that period were excluded from the album. 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). "It was something a certain record company executive twisted my arm into doing, but it didn't belong on the album so now it's being punished... My gut told me not to [put the song on Music], but I did it and then I regretted it so just for that reason it didn't deserve a place on GHV2," she said. Other notable exclusions were "This Used to Be My Playground", "Rain", "I'll Remember" and "You'll See"—all of which had been included on her ballads compilation Something to Remember (1995).
The album was originally titled Greatest Hits: The Second Coming, but Madonna decided to change the name to GHV2 just before it was released as "it's a title you will remember" and also because of "laziness", due to the fact that she had just finished the Drowned World Tour and was about to begin filming Swept Away (2002). The cover picture is from a 2001 photo shoot for InStyle magazine, by Regan Cameron. It was revealed through Madonna's official website, on October 18, 2001. Cameron recalled that they had been given the assignment of shooting Madonna for InStyle and he was nervous. It was shot at Smashbox Studios in Los Angeles and he tried out first with a polaroid. Two of the pictures from the session were used by Madonna, the first showing her with her finger on her lips as a promotional photo for the HBO debut of her Drowned World Tour video, and another one showing her with hair in front of her right eye for GHV2. Cameron also contributed artwork for the inner sleeve, which features 600 photographs of Madonna through the years. "GHV2" can also be seen on the cover art on Madonna's eye. The sleeve also contains Japanese lettering (モヂジラミミヂ), which is the result of typing the letters 'M-A-D-O-N-N-A' on an English keyboard but with the keys re-mapped to their positions on a Japanese kana keyboard. It is pronounced as "Mo-Ji-Ji-Ra-Mi-Mi-Ji". 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".
Madonna's company Maverick Records sent a promotional megamix titled "GHV2 Megamix" to radio stations on October 29, 2001. However, it was limited to airplay, and was never released commercially nor included on GHV2. The songs featured, in chronological order, were "Don't Tell Me", "Erotica", "Secret", "Frozen", "What It Feels Like for a Girl", "Take a Bow", "Deeper and Deeper", "Music" and "Ray of Light". Remixes were produced by Thunderpuss, Johnny Rocks & Mac Quayle and Tracy Young. 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. They basically liked ours the best and so they put it out." The remix peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. An accompanying music video for the remix, directed by Dago Gonzalez of Veneno Inc., was compiled of images of Madonna's live performances and previous music videos and premiered on November 2, 2001, through Total Request Live (TRL) and MTV's website. MTV France listed the remixes on their website for streaming.