The Love Club EP

Lorde was discovered by A&R representative Scott MacLachlan of Universal Music Group (UMG) at the age of 12, when MacLachlan saw footage of Lorde performing at a school talent show in Auckland, New Zealand. At the age of 13, Lorde started writing songs herself. MacLachlan unsuccessfully tried to set up Lorde with several songwriters and producers to help her with production. Ultimately, he paired Lorde with Joel Little in December 2011, when she had just turned 15. Little was impressed by Lorde's vocal performance and songwriting abilities, and he built songs with musical structures based on Lorde's lyrics. Lorde took inspiration from hip hop-influenced music artists, such as Lana Del Rey, during the writing process, yet criticised their "bullshit" references to "expensive alcohol, beautiful clothes and beautiful cars". The pair also recorded two other songs for the EP: "Million Dollar Bills" and "The Love Club". Lorde wrote the lyrics, while Little composed the melodies and played all the instruments, including drums, guitars and synthesisers. In total, the pair took three weeks to finish The Love Club EP. ==Composition==

{{listen The Love Club EP consists of five songs, written by Lorde (credited to her birth-name Ella Yelich-O'Connor) and Little. The Love Club EP opens with the chamber pop song "Bravado". it talks about Lorde's feigned confidence as she prepared to enter the music industry. "Royals" and "Million Dollar Bills" are two tracks that criticise the glamorous lifestyle of the rich; the former combines subgenres of pop, including art pop and electropop, and also incorporates R&B, The title track of the EP, "The Love Club", discusses the befriending of "a bad crowd". featuring "futuristic war drum thump". For the US iTunes Store September 2013 edition of The Love Club EP, "Royals" was replaced by "Swingin Party", a cover version of The Replacements' song. ==Release and promotion==

in 2013 In November 2012, Lorde self-released The Love Club EP through her SoundCloud account for free download. After 60,000 downloads, UMG decided to commercially release the EP. On 8 March 2013, The Love Club EP was released digitally in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the United States. The CD edition of the record was released in New Zealand on 10 May, in Australia a week later, and in the United States on 9 July. In the United Kingdom, Virgin Records released a 10-inch vinyl edition on 10 June 2013. On 30 September 2013, the track listing of the US iTunes Store version of The Love Club EP changed, with "Royals" replaced by "Swingin Party". The single was made available for digital download worldwide in August 2013. All songs from The Love Club EP, including "Royals", were featured on an extended version of Lorde's first studio album Pure Heroine, released in 2013. On 27 July 2013, Lorde replaced Frank Ocean at the Splendour in the Grass festival in Byron Bay, Australia. On 6 August 2013, she held a concert at Le Poisson Rouge in New York—her first US show. Two days later, she performed "The Love Club" and "Royals" on Santa Monican radio station KCRW. In September 2013, she headlined the Decibel Festival in Seattle, Washington, and held a concert at Webster Hall and Warsaw Venue in New York City to promote The Love Club EP and her debut studio album Pure Heroine. On 13 November 2013, she performed six songs on Live on Letterman, including "Bravado" and "Royals". In early 2014, Lorde embarked on a concert tour in North America to promote The Love Club EP and Pure Heroine. ==Critical reception==

An editor of AllMusic called the album "evocative" and praised its "sultry, sinewy" sound. In a review of The Love Club EP for The Dominion Post, Tom Cardy deemed the songs on the record as "sharp, refreshing and smart". Additionally, he viewed the EP as the best album he had heard by a New Zealand artist that year and lauded Lorde's lyrics and performance as "simply incredible". As a music reviewer for mX, Nick Mason lauded the EP as a "strong" debut release for displaying Lorde's maturity beyond her years, as well as impressive and inventive musical style. At the 2013 New Zealand Music Awards, Lorde won Breakthrough Artist of the Year for the EP and Single of the Year for "Royals". With "Royals", Lorde and Joel Little won the APRA Silver Scroll award in 2013. At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards (2014), "Royals" was nominated for Record of the Year, and won Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance. The song won Top Rock Song at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards. At the 2014 World Music Awards, the EP was nominated for Best Album, which went to ''Coup d'Etat'' by G-Dragon. ==Commercial performance==

The Love Club EP debuted and peaked on the New Zealand Albums Chart at number two on 18 March 2013. It stayed on the chart for a total of 41 weeks. In Australia, the record appeared on the ARIA Singles Chart at number two. The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) certified The Love Club EP 16× platinum in Australia. In the US, the record peaked at number 23 on the Billboard 200 and had sold 60,000 copies by August 2013; it became the 182nd best-selling album of the year in the US. ==Track listing==

All songs written and composed by Joel Little and Ella Yelich-O'Connor, except "Swingin Party", written by Paul Westerberg. ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts ==Certifications and sales==