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

Ready for this? Jess Glynne’s Hold My Hand has been named as the UK’s TikTok song of the year thanks to the viral ‘nothing beats a Jet2holiday’ trend.

The 2015 hit has become associated with adverts for the holiday company over the years, but it gained a new life when TikTok users began using the audio to make a joke out of their holiday fails, travelling chaos and mishaps.

After claiming the title of TikTok’s UK and global song of the summer earlier this year, the track has gone on to soundtrack about 6.6 million videos on the platform, according to TikTok.

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

The 36-year-old from London told BBC Newsbeat she “feels blessed” to secure the TikTok title this year.

“It’s the most amazing feeling knowing that 10 years later a song that means so much to me, and was such an important part of my journey into music and earning my stripes as a solo artist – to 10 years later to be able to celebrate again and again throughout this year – has been insane,” she said.

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 revealed she has had to listen to herself over the plane airways once when she went on a Jet2 holiday to the Greek island Corfu with her family.

“I was a bit nervous, I was sat right at the front next to my mum – it was quite funny actually,” she recalled.

Despite being part of the internet meme that was on everyone’s TikTok feed this summer, Jess said her own tends to look a little different.

Normally when scrolling through the app, the singer is stopping on cooking videos, cat compilations and moments when people are caught falling down.

But the star admitted her favourite Jet2 Holiday videos are when parents get their kids to say the famous voiceover line “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday”.

However, her all-time favourite version of the trend featured a man getting a surprise in his hotel room.

“He went to open the curtain and the window was like really tiny, that really tickled me – it was like a prison cell,” she said.

Jess said the popularity of the trend has shown her how important social media can be for artists and now sees it as an “amazing way to engage with people”.

“Seeing the way the song has reconnected to the younger generation and they’ve all heard it for the first time – it’s just a really amazing thing to see,” she added.

The signer rose to fame in 2014 following her feature on the Clean Bandit’s hit Rather Be, followed by her collab with Route 94 on My Love, with both reaching the top spot in the UK charts.

She went on to release her debut album, I Cry When I Laugh, in 2015 which also went to number one.

Her follow-up, Always In Between, also topped the charts in 2018, and she released her third self-titled album last year, which peaked at number six.

Posts on TikTok using the Hold My Hand audio have been viewed more than 80 billion times, according to the social media platform.

It also secured the second spot on TikTok’s top 20 global songs of 2025.

But it is not the only older song that the platform has reintroduced this year through trends.

Users re-discovered the likes of 2007’s Breakin’ Dishes by Rihanna, 1997’s Let Down by Radiohead, and Rock That Body by the Black Eyed Peas, released in 2010.

But Pretty Little Baby by the late Connie Francis has beat all of them to claim TikTok’s global song of the year, six decades after its release in 1962.

The song was used more than 28 million times and often soundtracked wholesome videos of pets, family and relationships.

Other titles include:

• Global girl group KATSEYE named as TikTok’s global artist of the year

• Taylor Swift was the global most-saved artist in 2025

• US singer EJAE, who co-wrote many of the tracks on the hit film KPop Demon Hunters, was TikTok’s songwriter of the year

• Anxiety by US singer Doechii is TikTok’s music trend of the year

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