The album was the second compilation to use the title The Best of Bette, the previous version with different cover art and an entirely different track list having been released on the Atlantic Records label in both the UK, Continental Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand in 1978.

The K-tel compilation is highly notable in Midler's discography for a number of reasons, the first of them being that it was released by the US based K-tel label instead of Midler's original label Atlantic Records (today a subsidiary of Warner Music Group).

The second reason making the album both notable and collectable is the track selection; the album includes songs that by 1981 already had become standards in Midler's repertoire such as her signature tune "Friends", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", "Delta Dawn" and "Do You Want To Dance" and combines these with ten tracks taken from her then three most recent albums; a) the disco-flavoured Thighs and Whispers (1979) and the two hit singles "Married Men" and "My Knight In Black Leather", b) the soundtrack The Rose (1980) and live recordings like "When A Man Loves A Woman", "Midnight In Memphis" and "Love With A Feeling" (the latter two never issued as singles) as well as the studio-recorded title track "The Rose" (the single version with orchestral overdubs, in effect making its debut on this album) and finally c) the soundtrack to the concert documentary Divine Madness (1980) and the tracks "My Mother's Eyes" (the only single release from the album) and "Fire Down Below" (also featured in the movie The Rose, but first released on the Divine Madness album).

The pictures used for the cover of the K-Tel version of The Best of Bette show Midler in concert, taken from the movie The Rose.

The first Bette Midler greatest hits compilation to be released worldwide, including the US and Canada, was 1993's Experience the Divine.