The newly minted THE VOICE coach looks back on the moments that helped make him the beloved superstar he is today.

The last week of September may have been Michael Bublé's most special of the year.  Four days after making his debut as a coach on THE VOICE on Sept 23, he released his first-ever greatest hits album, THE BEST OF BUBLÉ.

It was a fitting combination of two major career moments for the five-time GRAMMY winner. While his BEST OF compilation honors his catalog, his new role on THE VOICE allows him to personally thank fans for a remarkable career.

"To this day, I still can't believe I'm doing this," Bublé tells GRAMMY.com.  "When I'm on THE VOICE, every chance I get, I'm jumping into the audience, because I'm emotional and sentimental about [how] each one of those people changed my life."

From hit originals like 'Everything' to his reimagined Great American Songbook classics such as 'Feeling Good' - and even his treasured rendition of 'The Spider-Man Theme' - THE BEST OF BUBLÉ celebrates his impact as a contemporary crooner.  Though that legacy includes 75 million albums sold worldwide and multiple No. 1 albums, Bublé is the first to admit that it wasn't easy to convince industry players that his traditional pop style would work in the 21st century.  Not only has he proven that tenfold, but through it all, he's been able to stay true to who he is - and that's what matters most.

Below, in his own words, Bublé reflects on his hard-fought journey to becoming an international superstar, and some of the songs onTHE BEST OF BUBLÉ that mean the most to him.

I had [released] music for 10 years before my first [major label] record, which was [2003's] Michael Bublé.  I had put out many independent records, I had gone and done a lot of indie festivals.  I was singing this stuff forever - I mean, it seemed like forever, but I was 17 years old when my first independent record came out.

I was so stoic about who I was, and the music that I loved.  And I loved jazz, and I loved the Great American Songbook.  I was so entrenched in loving that, and so protective of it.  But it's funny, because it was literally so far from being cool or marketable that it took me so long to even get a meeting with a record company.

Every single label and agency said the same thing.  And sometimes I'd wondered if they had talked to each other about it, and that there was, like, a manifesto that they had written, so that when Michael Bublé comes in to try to sell himself, here's what you say: "You are a really talented young guy.  You're really fun to watch on stage in the nightclubs, but this music, there's no commercial value in it, and we don't see how investing in you would be financially responsible.  But, you're really talented, and it's going to happen for you one day." 

Finally, when I was 25, I was introduced to David Foster, who at that time, was running 143/Reprise [Records] at Warner.  He had just had success with Josh Groban, and I think it had given him a little bit of an opportunity.  So I said to him, "Would you take me to see Tom Whalley at Warner?"  And he said, "No way.  You're on my radar, but I just don't see how this kind of music is going to take off" - the same thing!

I drove him nuts.  Actually, as a matter of fact, it came down to him saying, "The only way I'd produce a record is if you came up with the money," which was like, 100 grand a track.  So my manager and I went bank to bank in Vancouver until we found someone who would lend us the money.

I put David in an awkward position where he finally took me to Warner, and I got my deal.  And even then, it was just the beginning of a long story, because I had a one-record deal, and they said, "If you don't [sell] this many albums, there's no way there's a second album."

I had a great manager named Bruce Allen.  He would say, "Listen, they're not really biting in America.  So what would you think about going to the Philippines?  What do you think about going to Australia or South Africa?"  And I did, and that's kind of how it started.

I started to find success, and we started playing nightclubs.  In New York, I'd play the Blue Note, or in LA, I'd play Michael Feinstein's.  They were really smart about how they sold me, because I could have sold more seats at some point, and they were like, "No, we're going to go to LA, and we're going to make sure that it's a theater, and that people can't get tickets."  And I was so impatient.  It was like, "Yeah, but I can do this!"  Thank God I had a great team of people.

A lot of people can't say this about their relationship with a record company, but I've had a 20-year love affair.  They're my best friends.  For a lot of great artists, that's the trifecta - a supportive label and publicity department, and a manager who works you to death and loves you.  I had this dream collaboration with them, and it worked out for me.

There's a woman named Jo Faloona, who now has worked with me for the last 15 years in my management company.  But she used to work for Warner in Canada, and her job was to guesstimate, for budgetary reasons, what I would sell in [my] lifetime as an artist.  And she had some very moderate projections for me - 50 to 100,000 copies in my lifetime.  I came to her, and I was like, "Jo, how could you have such moderate projections?"  She goes, "Chicken, your first f*ing single was '[The] Spider-Man' [Theme].'  I did not see a lot of longevity for you."

And when I think about it like that, I understand.  They didn't know I was a songwriter at that point.  It was like, "Who is this little Sinatra, Dean Martin singing guy?"  Was I a good entertainer?  Probably.  But did I have a great sense of who I was artistically?  I knew I did, I sort of had to prove that to them.

Really, truly, the best thing that ever happened to me was not making it for so long.  I was 27 the first time I ever felt like I had real success, and I had become who I was going to be as a man.  I was so appreciative.

To this day, I still can't believe I'm doing this.  When I'm on THE VOICE, every chance I get, I'm jumping into the audience, because I'm emotional and sentimental about [how] each one of those people changed life.

I've gone through heavy stuff.  Like when my son was diagnosed [with hepatoblastoma in 2016], it gave me a deeper sense in the connection that I had to my audience.  Everything I had was because of them, and it was hard not to be emotional.

I wouldn't call it a GREATEST HITS [album], because I wanted it to be the best of my favorite stuff.  Because, listen, 'Spider-Man' wasn't a greatest hit.  But you know what?  There is not a day that I don't get into an Uber and somebody tells me that their kids listen to 'Spider-Man.'  It carries that sentimental value.

Those early songs I'd written, songs like 'Everything' and 'Home,' had a special place for me.  Especially because I had to fight - at that time, the company was saying, "No, no, no, you're an interpreter of music.'         

[With 'Home'], I had a letter from an executive at the company, and it said, "You have said the word 'home' 41 times in this song.  It's not a great song, and we don't want it."  And then when I did 'Everything,' I was doing the music video for it, and I remember standing behind the trailer getting ready to go and shoot.  And an executive said to me, "If I had known that you wanted originals, we would have hired a songwriter for you.  I think the song is weak."  On the first record that I did with David Foster, I had songs, and he used to say, "Well, you can do that on your solo record."  There was this running joke, "Oh, you're a songwriter?"  So those songs meant a lot to me.

And then there's songs like, 'Feeling Good,' 'Cry Me A River.'  I think the thing I'm best at is arranging and reinterpreting standards.  But that comes with coming up with conceptual ideas that take a song and change it from the first time that you've heard it.  For me, they were always very cinematic - even 'Feeling Good.'  I mean, obviously, Nina Simone is a goddess.  I was deeply infatuated by her and all her records.  I had this very James Bond-esque thing that I had in my head.  And I was so lucky that I could articulate that, and that a producer like David Foster could put that down on pen and paper.

It was always cinematic.  'Quando, Quando, Quando,'  I remember singing it to [David] and pretending that I could speak Portuguese.  There's these demos where I'm singing the Nelly Furtado part.  As ridiculous as it sounded, David got it.

God, I love the Dap Kings.  I miss Sharon Jones every day.  'Baby, You Got What It Takes' was one of my favorite songs ever.  I got wasted with her when we did that recording.  There was so much smoke in the booth, we couldn't see past each other.  We performed on 'SNL' (Saturday Night Live) together, and we were like kids in a candy store.  We couldn't believe we were doing it together.  She was such a great lady, and the Dap Kings were such a badass group of musicians.  There's so many memories, craziness.

It's 21 years [of] making music with my favorite humans - my musicians, my co-writers, the arrangers, the producers.  People I idolized.  I was listening to [THE BEST OF BUBLÉ], and I was thinking about [the fact that] every note that came out of my mouth, I never let one go without it meaning everything.  And whether I failed or succeeded, I can look back with this great sense of pride.