All the Pop Queens Are in the Studio Right Now

New music is on the horizon — and these stars know it. In the past few weeks, artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Clairo, Dua Lipa, and Gracie Abrams have all shared photos from their respective studio sessions. While Rodrigo’s and Abrams’ pivotal third albums have been rumored to be coming for a minute, it’s exciting that all these pop girlies seem to be back in a big way.

Clairo kicked off the week with an Instagram photo dump that featured pictures from what looks to be like studio sessions, indicating that the singer may be getting ready to drop her fourth album. One grainy picture seems like it was a security camera shot of two guitarists and one keyboardist jamming in a recording studio. Two other pictures were more explicit: one is just a close-up of a piece of masking tape that reads “Clairo 4” and another shows the singer writing in a notebook with a Roland keyboard behind her.

It’s been two years since Clairo released her spell-binding third LP Charm. Back then, she told Rolling Stone, “It takes so many records to really understand someone’s choices.” Fingers-crossed these new photos indicate that the singer’s fourth album is just around the corner.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Dua Lipa posted her own jam-packed photo dump. In between shots with her fiancé Callum Turner, a quick selfie with Tove Lo, and a picturesque cookie from the Sunset Tower Hotel, the pop star snuck three photos of herself strumming a crystal clear guitar. Lipa also shared a photo inside a recording studio. It’s the third time this year that the singer continued to tease her fourth studio album; Lipa also included photos from inside of a recording studio on her Instagram back in February. “Love is influencing the sonics,” she told RS in 2025 when asked about DL4. “The music I’m making is very fun. I’m still in discovery mode but we’re having a good time.” If the photos are any indication, Lipa’s fourth album is going to rock.

Olivia Rodrigo has been seemingly teasing her highly anticipated third album for quite some time now. Last October, the singer confirmed she was busy in the studio and continued to share Instagram posts from the studio, and even a cryptic photo dump. But on Feb. 24, Rodrigo’s trusty producer Dan Nigro shared his own sneak peak into OR3 when he uploaded a picture of him and the singer with the straightforward caption, “Finishing records.” Rodrigo herself noted “the palpable stress in this photo” as Nigro is photographed leaning back on a couch, one hand on his heart while the other is contemplatively at his temple. Beside him, Olivia is anything but smiles as she sits cross-legged with a concerned frown. Worried looks aside, it seems OR3 is well on its way.

Similarly, Gracie Abrams spent most of 2025 teasing her third album, the follow-up to 2024’s The Secret of Us, with pictures from the studio and even a song snippet on Instagram. But this past fall, the singer revealed that her “next album isn’t made,” while in conversation with Cyndi Lauper for Rolling Stone’s Musician on Musicians series. “I don’t know what I want to say yet,” she added. Now, it seems Abrams has figured that out. The singer shared several photos from the famed Long Pond Studios, where Dessner worked with Taylor Swift on her culture-shifting LPs folklore and evermore. In January 2026, Abrams revealed, “I’m beyond ready for it to belong to everyone else. I’ve never felt this way about anything I’ve made before, so it’s definitely driving me crazy in a good way.”

Among the onslaught of pop stars posting from the studio in recent weeks, Lorde also entered the conversation… well, kinda. On March 10, several fan accounts reported that the singer’s producer, Jim-E Stack, had shared, and subsequently deleted, a photo of Lorde in the studio. Last year, she released her first album in four years with the brilliantly raw Virgin. The post from the studio could have very well been a mistake on Stack’s part, but it still made fans speculate that Lorde could be working on a deluxe version of the album. While Lorde hasn’t confirmed any new music, last year she did state her intention to switch up her four-year pattern between albums. “It’s not allowed to be four years” she told the Los Angles Times. “It has to be sooner.… I really mean it.” Maybe, just maybe, Lorde is sticking to her goal.

Either way, with all of these glimpses inside the studio, it’s clear that the next chapter of pop music is going to be an exciting one.