'New lease of life': Nothing beats Jess Glynne for TikTok's UK song of the year

Thanks to the viral 'Nothing beats a Jet2holiday' trend, Jess Glynne's Hold My Hand has been named the UK's TikTok Song of the Year.

For years, the 2015 hit has been synonymous with the holiday company's advertisements, but it found a new lease of life when TikTok users started using the audio to joke about their holiday disappointments, travel chaos, and mishaps. According to TikTok, the track has soundtracked approximately six million videos on the platform.

The British singer first released the single more than a decade ago, and it became her first solo track to top the charts.

‘It has been insane’

The 36-year-old Londoner said she feels "blessed" to take the TikTok title this year, telling BBC Newsbeat:

"It's the most amazing feeling to know that, ten years later, a song that means so much to me—and that was such a vital part of my journey into music and earning my stripes as a solo artist—has been able to be celebrated again and again this year."

Jess said the trend has given the song a "new lease of life," and the joy she gets from the track has made it one of her favourites to perform.

The pop star also revealed that when she and her family recently went on a Jet2 holiday to Corfu, she had to endure listening to herself over the plane's tannoy.

"I was a little worried; I was sat right at the front next to my mum," she recalled.

Despite being part of everyone's TikTok feed this summer, Jess said her own algorithm looks a little different. Typically, when scrolling through the app, the singer isn't keen on cooking videos or cat compilations.

However, she confessed that her favourite 'Jet2holiday' videos are the ones where parents are encouraged to say the famous slogan: "Nothing beats a Jet2holiday." Her all-time favourite version of the trend featured a man receiving a 'surprise' in his hotel room.

"He went to open the curtains and the window was, like, really tiny," she laughed.

Connecting with a new generation

The success of the trend has shown her how important social media can be for musicians. Jess now sees it as an "amazing way to connect with others."

"Seeing the way the song has reconnected to the younger generation, and that some of them have seen it for the first time, has been amazing," she said.

The singer rose to fame in 2014 following her appearance on Clean Bandit's hit Rather Be and her collaboration with Route 94 on My Love, both of which reached number one in the UK charts. She released her debut album, I Cry When I Laugh, in 2015, which also debuted at number one. Her follow-up, Always In Between, topped the charts in 2018.

Despite being inescapable this year, Hold My Hand did not re-enter the Official UK Singles Chart in 2025.

TikTok says it determines its 'Song of the Year' rankings based on a formula involving the number of videos created using the music and the performance of the artist's own pages. According to the platform, Hold My Hand also secured the number two spot on TikTok's top 20 global hits of 2025.

It is not the only older song that the platform has reintroduced this year due to trends. Users also revisited tracks such as Rihanna's 2007 hit Breakin' Dishes, Radiohead's Let Down (1997), and The Black Eyed Peas' releases from 2010.

Meanwhile, the late Connie Francis's Pretty Little Baby was named TikTok's top international song of the year, six decades after its debut in 1962. The song was used in more than 28 million videos, often soundtracking wholesome clips of pets, families, and weddings.