Now that Labor Day has come and gone, engaging in song-of-the-summer discourse feels a bit like beating a dead horse. We’ve already waxed poetic about Spotify’s picks and balked at Billboard’s by-the-numbers choice. But after TikTok shared its selections on Sept. 4, it’s safe to say with full certainty there was no SOTS — and we have the proof.
By TikTok’s standards, one hit stood out among the rest this season: Jess Glynne’s “Hold My Hand.” You might not recognize the song — or even the artist — by name, but you’ve definitely heard the phrase “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday.” Ripped from a commercial for a budget airline based in the U.K., the sound became a go-to for creators sharing clips from their less-than-picture-perfect vacations. And if you listen closely, you’ll hear “Hold My Hand” bumping underneath the viral ad.
Off the bat, this choice seems like a cop-out. TikTok claims “Hold My Hand” was featured in over 9 million TikToks this summer, but anyone who’s heard the sound knows the song is secondary to the cheery British voiceover encouraging us all to “save 50 pounds per person.” But even if we ignore that fact, there’s one glaring issue with this SOTS pick: It was released in March 2015.
There’s an unspoken rule that the SOTS must sonically encapsulate the year, and a decade-old song can’t be representative of the moment we’re living in. Strangely, among the rest of TikTok’s SOTS picks, you’ll find seven other non-2025 selections, including 2005’s “Soul Survivor” by Jeezy ft. Akon, “Pretty Little Baby” by Connie Francis (a song recorded in 1961), “Your Love Is My Drug” by Kesha, “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift, and “Rock That Body” by The Black Eyed Peas. The only thing these choices say about 2025 is that we’re at an all-time pop-culture low, desperate for a moment that no longer exits.
FWIW, there were two 2025 releases that made the cut: “Whim Whamiee” by Pluto and YKNIECE, and “Mad Again” by BunnaB. Even if you’ve heard these songs passively scrolling through your FYP, we implore you to play them for your most offline friend — $10 says they’ve never heard either.
