Apart from the respective artists' hits and most well-known songs, the Collected series often includes hard-to-find tracks, such as obscure tracks never-before released on CD, remixes, live recordings, non-album tracks, and deep cuts.
Firstly issued as a 3-CD compilation album series by USM (a division of Universal Music B.V.), this series is now distributed by Music On Vinyl, still developed by Universal Music.

Collected is a continuation from USM's previous greatest hits compilation album series The Ultimate Collection (2003 to 2006), and The Very Best Of (4) (2006 to 2007), with titles from the former series often being reissued in the latter as 2-disc sets. Occasionally, some of these compilations get reissued under the Collected banner as well.