Album covers: Mariah Carey - Caution

Well, I will be fucking damned. Mariah has revealed the title of her 15th studio album and it is not The aria of the skinny songbird, Sunflowers or The trepidatious life of a Princess. It's simply called Caution.

And just like that we have entered a new phase of Mariah's career where she switches up her album titles.

Mariah has also shared the album cover, which was also a shock.

Line all of Mariah's albums up side by side and you'll see commonalities between each one. She's often lit the same way and posing in similar fashions. Caution still keeps to Mariah's thing of  showing her face from her left side. But the art direction of the shot as a whole is a pretty drastic departure from what we've gotten from Mariah in the past. Firstly, she's not gone overboard with having herself be photoshopped to look like she has the body of Jack Skellington. Although there may be some album inlay shots that beg to differ. She's embracing her size and her proportions, which is nice. And it's a pretty striking cover visually, which isn't something I could say about any of Mariah's previous album covers. It's bold. It's vibrant. I really fucking like it.

And then of course there is the lack of text. There is no sign of her signature typeface, which despite changing ever so slightly when she hopped between labels, has pretty much stayed the same. There is a chance that when the album goes on retail, the physical CD version of the album will feature a sticker with her name and the album title on it or that they'll be visible on the vertical strip down the left hand side of jewel cases. Or, she may pull an E=MC2 and be like 'FUCK IT' and go with a whole new typeface altogether.

But, if you pre-order the album from her official fan club, you will receive the album with a completely different album cover.

Now, this version is equally striking and visually sells the album title. But Mariah's hair, dress and pose make the proportions of her body look completely off. And whilst I love the lighting on this, the pose and framing is not entirely dissimilar to what we got with #1's, The emancipation of Mimi and #1's to Infinity. But it's nice to see Mariah giving us bold colour and lighting and that she's not obviously been Photoshop liquefied to look like she has the body of Frozone from The Incredibles.

As nice as these album covers are, I'm sure the inlay will just feature shots of Mariah laying and sitting around in her house in lingerie, as per the "GTFO" and "With you" videos. In fact, they'll probably just be stills from the damn videos. Mariah rarely if ever gives us good inlay moments. A bitch will just give us a fold out with song lyrics and 1 picture of her on the back, lying on a Grecian couch. But I hope I'm wrong and we get a booklet of Mariah serving us looks and the follow through of a concept that matches the album covers.

Mariah has also announced a tour to support the album from February of next year. I was expecting her to extend her Vegas residency, but nope. A bitch is doing a World tour. Only North American dates her Caution word tour have been announced so far. But Mariah is booked internationally before that shit even kicks off, with gigs in East Asia throughout November, her All I want for Christmas tour hitting Europe in December and then shows in Vegas throughout February. You can check out tour dates and official ticket sellers from Mariah's official website.