Following her career as a bassist for Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins, Auf der Maur recorded the album over the course of two years in various studios through the United States and Canada with producer Chris Goss.

The songs featured on Auf der Maur were written over a ten-year period, from 1992 to 2002, throughout her time in Tinker, Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins.

Auf der Maur features a number of guest musicians and collaborators including former bandmates Eric Erlandson and James Iha, Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, Mark Lanegan, Jeordie White and John Stanier.

Upon its release, Auf der Maur received generally favourable reviews and was a moderate commercial success, selling 200,000 copies worldwide.

Following her departure from Hole in November 1999, Melissa Auf der Maur was recruited as the replacement bassist for D'arcy Wretzky in The Smashing Pumpkins in early 2000.

"[3] In late 2001, Auf der Maur discovered "old demos" in her Montréal residence and "realized [she] had an entire album's worth of material that had been sitting there for years."

Among the demos was "Real a Lie", a song written with frequent collaborator Steve Durand, that was released as a single by the duo's former band Tinker in 1994.

[12] For initial promotion upon its American release, Auf der Maur appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on June 17[13] and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on July 6.

[17] Auf der Maur promoted the album with an almost-constant tour across Europe, the United Kingdom and North America during 2004.

The 151-date tour included support from A Perfect Circle, Mínus, The Living Things, The Offspring, The Polyphonic Spree, The Von Bondies, Matthew Good and H.I.M.

"[30] Alternative Press awarded the album four out of five stars, adding that "the disc's bread and butter is Auf Der Maur's smoking riffs.

Club said that "though Auf Der Maur is never objectionably bad, there's nothing the least bit distinctive about it" and called it "Billy Corgan-inspired, arena-scale, guitar-driven introspective musery" in his three out of ten review.

[32] In his review for the BBC, Matt Wicks described the album as "excellent" and "like the Pumpkins in their prime" and compared Auf der Maur to other female contemporaries such as Shirley Manson and PJ Harvey.

[33] Blender gave a majorly positive review, awarding the album three out of five stars, but criticized Auf der Maur's vocals, stating: "buffeted by big guitars, her thin, untrained voice occasionally sounds listless.

"[34] Tom Edwards of Drowned in Sound noted that the "opening trio of tracks are the most convincing" and the album "still has all the hallmarks of the debut record [...] it has the great songs that have been collected over years in the bedroom and on the road" in his seven out of ten review.