Multiple versions of the album were made available to pre-order, including alternate artworks, bundles and a Target-exclusive edition with bonus tracks.

In May 2019, Lovato revealed she had signed with a new manager, Scooter Braun,[3] and confirmed to Teen Vogue the following November that new music was coming, stating "I didn't say when — now I'm just teasing you.

[10] The album serves as a companion piece to Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, a YouTube Originals docu series, which began release on March 23, 2021.

[21] Lastly, some songs on the album, such as "15 Minutes", "The Way You Don't Look At Me", and "What Other People Say" are described as "pop-country" and "folk-pop" with guitar-driven instrumentals and earnest oversharing.

[21] The first three tracks of Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over are listed as "Prelude", and consist of "power ballads chronicling Lovato's darkest days" before moving into her recovery.

[24] Bryan Rolli of Forbes opined the lyrics talk about the singer's "feelings of isolation and anguish", as exemplified in the chorus, "Anyone, please send me anyone / Lord, is there anyone?

(Madison's Lullabye), is a "stark piano ballad"[28] which "echoes a key scene in her documentary in which Lovato wakes up post-overdose, temporarily blind, and can't recognize her sister sitting at her bedside".

Co-writer Justin Tranter stated that "it's this very intimate, raw, heartbreaking song, but there's this beauty to it, because of how it sounds and it feels, and Demi's vocal performance on that really destroys me".

[27] The Ariana Grande collaboration "Met Him Last Night" was referred to by NME as a "dark and atmospheric electro bop".

[31] The twelfth track "The Kind of Lover I Am", a "lightly funky number", was compared with Harry Styles' 2019 single "Watermelon Sugar"[29] and features the lyrics "Doesn't matter if you're a woman or a man, that's the kind of lover I am", with Lovato elaborating that "I'm a very fluid person when it comes to sexuality, so I wanted to write a song about that.

[27] "Good Place", the last track of the standard edition of the album, "makes further use of acoustic guitar balladry to celebrate her recovery".

[34] In positive reviews, Robin Murray of Clash hailed Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over "an ambitious and hugely revealing journey into pop redemption", and praised the combination of darkness with lightness.

[31] Mark Richardson of The Wall Street Journal wrote that, while Lovato's previous album Tell Me You Love Me (2017) "found her embracing R&B and club-ready electronic pop", Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over "is much more subdued" and that it is "certainly a recovery narrative, but the details of her story, many of which make it into these songs, are almost unbearably harrowing.

"[44] Reviewing for The Line of Best Fit, Rachel Saywitz remarked that there are more "gems than duds" on the album, in which Lovato experimented more than her previous releases, both musically and vocally.

[45] Evening Standard's David Smyth felt that Lovato "reaches too easily for cliches" in the album, as the "polished pop inhibits her power".

[37] Consequence of Sound critic Mary Siroky appreciated Lovato's vocals, but found the latter half of the record "forgettable".

Questioning whether the album "is a work of art, an exhale, and a reclamation, rather than an opportunity to profit", Siroky asserted that it is powerful to see Lovato continue making music inspired by her bravery, however, "it would be nice to see a day when [she doesn't] have to be so brave anymore and can instead create joyfully and freely".

"[40] Chris Willman of Variety complimented Lovato's vocals, though was concerned over the "overtly autobiographical" numbers, some of which are "pretty good" while few others are "not-so-hot", resulting in an "unevenness".

He picked "The Way You Don't Look at Me", "Melon Cake" and "California Sober" as the highlights and dismissed the Ariana Grande and Saweetie collaborations as letdowns.

[2] "Met Him Last Night" featuring Grande was serviced to US contemporary hit radio in the United States on April 13, 2021, as the album’s fourth single.

[53] Credits adapted from the liner notes of the alternate cover and UK release edition of Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Starting Over.