Analysis of You Me At Six's album, Cavalier Youth, digipack.

1. You Me At Six - Album Digipack Analysis
This is the digipack for the album ‘Cavalier Youth’
by alternative rock group, You Me At Six, released
in the January of 2014.
The front cover image creates a narrative enigma
as it is unclear as the whether it is a sunrise or
sunset, and each scenario could suggest different
narrative. A sunset could suggest that this young
boy is ready to take on the day with fighting spirit
or a sunset could suggest the idea of him facing
fears through the night. The ambiguity in
sequence of events is consistent with the
alternative genre of music and supports Lacey’s
genre theory.
By using the backlight of the sun, the creation of
the boys silhouette allows for a lack in specificity
of character, the only things that are clear is his
gender and vague age. This then represents
‘youth’ as a bigger picture and therefore can be used to represent a wider population.
The album title ‘Cavalier Youth’ to many people who create an image of unruly, dismissive
teenagers who have little respect for anyone else. However You Me At Six have instead decided
evoke an innocent and less corrupt version of the phrase. The boy is seen to be holding a toy
sword suggest play and adventure and thus challenges what many people may have otherwise
imagined. This makes the album more appealing to a wider audience as it doesn’t connote
violence, anger or teen rebellion as other sort of image could have.
The 2 main colours on the front and back cover image created by the sunset can be seen to
represent different emotions that feature within the album. The blue is a melancholy colour
demonstrating sadness which features in some of these songs while the yellow / orange aspect of
image connotes fire, warmth and life. Young people often feel these fluctuations in emotions and
therefore the images and song content can be something their target demographic can relate to.
Alternative rock bands rarely feature themselves on the front cover of an album. You me at Six
have also kept up with this convention, with no sign of them on the front or back cover. This
suggests that the music content and narrative is what matters to them in order to become a
successful album and as a well established long running band, they have continued to have
successful with every album release.
The inside cover is where the consumer can then see the band. The left had image shows 3 band
members in America, the palm trees would suggest that it could possibly be somewhere in
California. Each band member is facing and looking right of the image; it seems as though they are
all looking towards the same thing. It could also be said that they are looking towards in the two
other images in the inside cover of the digipack.
The second and third image represent music. The centre image uses many iconic props that
represent alternative rock, including electric and bass guitars, speakers, foot pedal boards.
The images that feature band members have been composed to look upstaged and therefore
seem to have been captured during the band’s writing and recording process for this album.
Therefore gives the audience an insight into the setting in which the featured songs were created.
The final image includes multiple sets of drum sticks; each one of these has been signed by the
drummer of the band, Dan Flint and includes a small message, these most likely were sent to their
fans.
The narrative of these images from right to left demonstrates the process of writing the album.
From image 1 representing the inspiration, being in a new city, to image 2, writing the music the

2. You Me At Six - Album Digipack Analysis
progressing onto image 3, representing the final stage, the fans, once the music is mastered, the
album is released and fans can listen to what the band have been working on for the past year.
The inside cover repeats the album name, spread across all the sections in large writing. The
mirrors the image of timeline and thus reflects the word ‘youth’ as this is a point in everyone’s life.