Every new year brings speculation as to which musical legends might be returning, and which pop heavyweights are due to release a new record. Here are six significant artists who are definitely, or widely expected to be, releasing new music in 2017.

LordeLorde's new album will surely arrive in 2017

It feels like forever since Lorde broke through into the mainstream at the precociously young age of 16. Indeed, the release of her signature song ‘Royals’ is approaching its fourth anniversary. In the meantime, she's provided the soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 and performed a David Bowie tribute at the Brit Awards.

The New Zealand-born star has spent most of the second half of 2016 teasing the follow-up to Pure Heroine on Twitter, but as of the time of writing the record doesn’t yet have a title or a release date. However, whenever she does get round to it, it’s bound to be one of the avidly anticipated releases of the year.

Alternative rock stalwarts Elbow have established themselves as one of the biggest draws in guitar music over the last 15 years. Following a short hiatus during which lead singer Guy Garvey pursued a solo career, the band announced their seventh studio album Little Fictions earlier this month.

They shared its lead single ‘Magnificent (She Says)’ plus its video, and the album will be coming out on February 3rd. Very few other bands are as reliably great as Elbow, and we can feel confident that Little Fictions will do the job yet again.

It’s been nearly half a decade since The XX released an album. The group’s mercurial in-house producer Jamie Smith released a solo album In Colour 18 months ago which, with contributions from his bandmates Oliver Sim and Romy Madley-Croft, actually felt quite a lot like an xx album.

Anyway, their immensely anticipated third album I See You is finally being released in a matter of weeks on January 13th, with its first single ‘On Hold’ already in the public realm.

EminemEminem's eighth album is in the works

Eminem’s much-vaunted comeback in 2009 ended up yielding three albums in just over four years: the unloved Relapse, the slightly better Recovery and the largely enjoyable The Marshall Mathers LP 2. In three years since that, there’s been very little from the rap legend.

However, in October, Em decided to wade into the American presidential election with a new track called ‘Campaign Speech’, announcing at the same time that he was working on a new album. There’s no further details other than that, but it’s reasonably safe to assume it will appear in the next 12 months.

The effect of Mat Whitecross’ well-received Oasis documentary Supersonic earlier this year has been slightly different to the one everybody would have wanted. Instead of a full Oasis reunion, lead singer Liam Gallagher appears to have been inspired to commence a solo career.

Those who remember the ill-fated Beady Eye might greet this news with trepidation, but at least it’s drawn Liam out from hiding. There’s no release date or title for the record, but it’s widely expected to arrive in the first half of 2017.

Run The JewelsRun The Jewels performing in 2015

Hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, consisting of Killer Mike and El-P, set the world alight with their fantastic second album Run The Jewels 2 near the end of 2014. Since then, we’ve had headline tours and remix albums with cat noises, but news of a quick-fire third was nowhere to be found for a long time.

However, Run The Jewels 3 was eventually announced in November, with the album dropping on January 13th. If it’s anywhere near as good as its predecessor, it’s sure to be one of the albums of 2017.

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