On September 1, 2015, Interscope Records announced that Maroon 5 would be releasing their debut greatest hits album, on their label.[3] The track listing and album art cover were announced on the same day,[4] revealing that there will be only 12 singles featured on the compilation album and will not contain any new or unreleased tracks. Some of their singles, such as "Harder to Breathe", "Sunday Morning" and "Won't Go Home Without You", were not included,[5] though the latter two are included on the Japanese edition of the album.
The album artwork for Singles was shot and edited by photographer and tourist Travis Schneider, also known as bootswallace on various social media websites, which was confirmed by Schneider via Twitter on September 6, 2015.[6] The photo was taken whilst on tour with Maroon 5 on their North American leg of their world tour backstage.
Writing for Contactmusic.com, Alex Lai stated: "For anyone who has forgotten or indeed not been familiar with the work of Adam Levine and company, this is a fine demonstration of their ability to blend genres".[8]
Writing for Exepose, Georgia Seldis stated: This greatest hits album is almost a playlist of all of the Maroon 5 songs any casual fan would have on their iTunes, most of which we’ve all heard a million times on the radio.[9]
Reviewer Pip Ellwood-Hughes wrote: Singles picks out 12 of the band’s greatest hits from their career so far. It’s not by any means a comprehensive celebration of the band’s hits and it features no new tracks on it either. In fact it doesn’t even feature the band’s summer hit This Summer’s Gonna Hurt Like a Motherfucker, which is a bit of a shame to be honest. The album opens with This Love, arguably one of the band’s biggest hits, and it includes classics such as She Will Be Loved, Payphone, Makes Me Wonder and Misery.[10]
The album debuted at number six in Japan, selling 11,000 physical copies in its first week.[11] In Brazil, the album debuted at number eight on the ABPD chart, selling 20,000 copies in its first week.[12]