Mariah Carey's Most Awkwardly Photoshopped Album Covers

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Columbia Records

Mariah Carey released the cover artwork for her forthcoming album #1 To Infinity, and while we're excited to be getting more music from the 45-year-old diva, something seemed a little off about the cover.

We love Mariah -- we've written about how awesome she is several times before -- but one of the things that we find so attractive about her is her confidence and natural beauty. So why doesn't she look anything like herself on the cover of #1 To Infinity?

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Many fans have gone online to accuse Mariah of photoshopping herself to look as skinny as she did back in the '90s.

Is it possible she's trying to emulate her #1s album? Because that was 1998, and no one looks like they did 17 years ago.

This isn't the first time she's taken heat for possibly altering her appearance. Last year she released the confusingly titled album Me. I Am Mariah… The Elusive Chanteuse, where she appeared on the beach in a gold, beaded swimsuit looking incongruously svelte.

In 2009, she released the album Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, and appeared in three separate poses on the cover. While the first two looked reasonable, many felt the shape of her body -- specifically her bust -- in the far right pose wasn't possible unless she was a cartoon character.

One thing that has certainly changed with the cover art for Mariah's new album is much tamer hair. For many of her previous releases, it looks like her hair is alive, and is often attacking her in inconvenient ways.

Little known fact: In the 1990s and early 2000s, gravity had no known effect on Mariah's hair.

Even when it's not Mariah herself that (might) be getting help from Photoshop, it certainly is her backgrounds. A number of albums seem to have Mariah performing in some sort of bizarre, surrealist nightmare landscape.

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For Emotions, Mariah appeared to be writhing while standing in some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland.

As for the soundtrack to her movie Glitter, she's in a terrifying metropolis whose city planner designed the entire downtown area to look like a high schooler's Myspace page from 2002.

Ultimately, no matter how weird or unsettling or disappointingly Mariah's edited album covers might be, there's no denying that her music is beloved and celebrated.

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Mariah's single "All I Want for Christmas is You" is one of the biggest, highest-earning, most-covered songs in the world -- but one cover has them all beat. Check out the video below to see the coolest rendition of the holiday classic ever.

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