Hagar approved the title, as it poked fun at all the artists and bands that were releasing boxed set collections at the time.

He agreed to record two new songs for financial reasons: Sammy was going through a divorce with his first wife Betsy Berardi, and the album would help settle it.

[3] In an interview with Howard Stern in 2011, Sammy said he paid his wife nearly $9 million, and $23,000 per month for many years to follow.

During this time, Van Halen was in the process of hiring a new manager after Ed Leffler died in October 1993, and behind the scenes, the band was beginning to fall apart.

In 1997, Hagar declared that he considered Unboxed the beginning of the end of his tenure in Van Halen, and added that "If I would have ever dreamed that I wouldn't be in Van Halen anymore and was going to have resume my solo career again, I would have never contributed anything towards my own greatest hits package, even for the money."