Now That's What I Call Music! 38 was released on May 3, 2011. The album is the 38th edition of the Now! series in the United States. The album features six tracks that reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100: "Born This Way", "S&M", "Hold It Against Me", "Grenade", "E.T." and "Rolling in the Deep".

Now! 38 debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 albums chart with first week sales of 124,000.