Twenty years after its release, World, Hold On remains the Bob Sinclar record that crowds sing back at him word for word. Sung by Steve Edwards and first issued in April 2006, “World, Hold On (Children of the Sky)” climbed to No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart, went to No. 2 in France and topped the US dance club chart. Two decades on, its official video has passed 372 million views on YouTube and a FISHER rework has carried it to a new generation of dancefloors.
How World, Hold On came together
The track was the second single from Western Dream, the album Sinclar released in 2006 on his own Yellow Productions label. It came out in Belgium and the Netherlands on 17 April 2006, reached Australia in June and landed in the UK on 3 July through Defected. Sinclar wrote it with Steve Edwards and Michaël Tordjman, and Edwards, the British singer who had already lent his voice to several club records, delivered the hook that would define it: a plea to the world to hold on, framed as a song for the “children of the sky”.
Musically it sat right where Sinclar was at the time. After the global success of “Love Generation” a few months earlier, he leaned again on a big singalong chorus, bright piano chords and a straight four to the floor groove built for both radio and peak time sets.
The chart run
World, Hold On was a hit across Europe in the summer of 2006. It reached No. 2 in France, No. 3 in both regions of Belgium, No. 5 on the Dutch Top 40 and No. 4 on the Eurochart Hot 100, and it went to No. 1 in Hungary and Romania. In the UK it peaked at No. 9 and reached No. 2 on the dance chart.
In the United States it became Sinclar’s second No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart and finished 2006 as the year’s top club play record. An E Smoove remix of the track was nominated for Best Remixed Recording, Non Classical at the 2007 Grammy Awards.
A boy, a dog and a spaceship
Much of the song’s staying power comes from its video. A young boy, played by David Beaudoin, who also appears in the clips for “Love Generation” and “Rock This Party”, hears on the news that a meteor is heading for Earth. He builds a spaceship in his bedroom, takes his dog along and flies through a solar system that looks exactly like the poster on his wall.
Toys dance out from under the bed, Sinclar shows up as a tiny figure spinning cookies as records, and the boy destroys the meteor with basketballs before being hailed as a hero. Then he wakes up: it was all a dream. The official HD upload on Sinclar’s YouTube channel now sits above 372 million views, a number most dance records of that era never came close to.
Remixes that kept World, Hold On alive
For twelve years the original stood on its own. Brazilian DJ Vintage Culture delivered the first official remix in 2018, and Tom Staar plus DJ Kone and Marc Palacios followed in 2021. The biggest revival came in 2022, when FISHER reworked the track for Yellow Productions. It was the Australian producer’s first officially released remix, and Dancing Astronaut described it as a restrained update that kept the spirit of the original intact.
The rework took on a life of its own. Sinclar celebrated its release with a party at Hï Ibiza in August 2022, its official video has passed 74 million views, and it earned platinum certifications in the UK and Australia. Since then the song has resurfaced on charts again, including the Brazil Hot 100 and the Billboard Global 200.
Why it still works
Plenty of 2006 club hits sound like their year. World, Hold On has aged better because its message is simple and its hook is built for thousands of voices at once. It is the kind of record that unites a festival field, which explains why Sinclar still headlines summer stages two decades later and why younger producers keep coming back to it.
Like Sam Smith’s vocal on Disclosure’s “Latch” or the chart battle behind Spiller’s “Groovejet”, it is a reminder that the dance records that last are usually the ones people can sing.
Where were you the first time you heard it?
