With just 10 days to go before Adele drops her anticipated fourth album, 30, one of the tracks from the collection made its debut in a new holiday ad from Amazon on Sunday. The spot features the swelling ballad “Hold On” playing in the background as the soundtrack to a story of a lonely college student whose day is brightened when a neighbor lights up her holiday season with a thoughtful gift.
The track featuring a marching band-style snare drum counterpoint to a warm piano base, finds Adele lamenting the struggle to stay positive amidst challenges. “Right now I truly hate being me/ Every day feels like the road I’m on/ Might just open up and swallow me whole,” Adele croons as a voiceover describes the rise in cases of anxiety among young adults caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In a Vogue profile last month, the song was described as a “joyous anthem” that features a chorus of the singer’s friends singing, “Just hold on/ Just hold on.” The spare track picks up near the end of the ad, with the addition of the martial drums and a gospel chorus of backing vocalists swelling behind the singer. “The thing that they’re all singing is what my friends used to say to me,” Adele told the magazine. “That’s why I wanted them to sing it, rather than an actual choir.”
Ahead of the Nov. 19 release, the first official single from 30, “Easy On Me,” topped the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart for a third week.
“Easy on Me,” released Oct. 14 on Columbia Records, drew 70 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 12%) and 25.8 million U.S. streams (down 19%) and sold 15,800 downloads (down 32%) in the Oct. 29-Nov. 4 tracking week, according to MRC Data. The ballad also continued its run as the biggest song in the world with ah third week at No. 1 on both the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated Nov. 13).
Listen to “Hold On” in the ad below.
