Bedtime Stories had already proven that Madonna had calmed down a bit after the raunchy Erotica period. With the release of Something to Remember she took it a step further and used her new-found serenity to release a collection of her best ballads. Several of the songs selected for Something to Remember came from movie soundtracks and some had not appeared on a Madonna album before.
There were three new songs on the album. Madonna worked again with producer Nellee Hooper on the song "I Want You" (which was recorded together with Bristol-based trip-hoppers Massive Attack). The song is a cover version of the classic Marvin Gaye song and it was first released on a various artists sampler Inner City Blues. "I Want You" was slated to be released as a single; a video was even shot for it. However, plans for its release were eventually canceled because of the cold reaction. "You'll See" (released as the first single) and "One More Chance" (released as a single in Europe and Australia) were the album's two other new songs which were written and produced by Madonna and David Foster. Other singles from the album were a remix of "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" (only released in the U.S. and Australia) and "Oh Father" (exclusively for the UK). The video of "You'll See" was a sequel to the video for the previous album's "Take a Bow".
The Japanese version of the album contained "La Isla Bonita" as a bonus track, while the bonus track on the Latin American and Spanish version was "Verás", the Spanish version of "You'll See".
As in 2004, in 1995, Madonna was a spokesperson of Versace, and the pictures of this compilation, whom the cover, were some of the Versace advertising campaign released in 1995. The album went on to sell over 8 million worldwide.