When it comes to using gzip, the vital thing that you need to remember is that this tool helps you in making your files smaller by compressing them. File types vary in how well they get compressed.
That's why there are recommendations given as to the best compression option for you to take. Though, it's not a must that that's the one you choose. In fact, you can run a simple gzip command to either get the minimum compression or get the maximum by varying the speed that it's run to compress the file.