It was out of print until July 2013 when the album became available on compact disc through Black's own label the Bureau.

[5] Most of the tracks were released in Europe as either B-sides or bonus tracks except "Jumping Beans," which is previously unreleased, and "Man of Steel" which was originally released on the various artists compilation album Songs in the Key of X.

Frank Black wrote in the album's liner notes, "I got together with [engineer] Dave Schiffman in Los Angeles in 1997 to review B-sides and outtakes, some to be remixed for this compilation, and so this is not a completist collection, just some songs that I liked.

"[6] Andrew McNally, writing for the Filtered Lens, wrote that Oddballs "is better than most rarities collections, but it is still barely good enough to stand on its own legs."

"[2] All tracks are written by Frank Black, except "Re-make/Re-model" by Bryan Ferry and "Just a Little" by Ron Elliott and Bob Durand.