David Tao (), born Tao Xuzhong () (born 11 July 1969), is a
Taiwanese
Taiwanese may refer to:
* Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien
* Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa)
* Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan
* Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan
* Taiwanese people, ...
Golden Melody Award
The Golden Melody Awards (), commonly abbreviated as GMA, is an honor awarded by Taiwan's Ministry of Culture to recognize outstanding achievement in the Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and Formosan-languages popular and traditional music in ...
-winning singer-songwriter. He is well known for creating a crossover genre of
R&B and
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
tunes which has now become his signature style and for having popularized R&B in the
Mandopop
Mandopop or Mandapop refers to Standard Chinese, Mandarin popular music. The genre has its origin in the jazz-influenced popular music of 1930s Shanghai known as Shidaiqu; with later influences coming from Japanese enka, Hong Kong's Cantopop, Ta ...
industry.
Biography
Tao was born on July 11, 1969 in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
to parents who were entertainers in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. His father, Tao Dawei (David Tao Sr.) (September 28, 1942 – September 12, 2012), was an actor/singer/composer/TV Host and his mother, Wang Furong (Catherine), a Chinese opera singer.
Tao spent part of his childhood in Hong Kong (something which he shared with his audience during his ''Soul Power'' concerts in Hong Kong). His parents supposedly eloped when his father could not get approval to marry his mother. Tao had his education in Taiwan from kindergarten to the junior high school level at the Bethany Campus of
Morrison Academy
Morrison Academy () is an international Christian school founded 1952 in Taichung, Taiwan. It primarily caters to the children of missionaries. Beyond the original Taichung location it also maintains a campus in Taipei and Morrison Academy Kaoh ...
in
Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...
. Later, his father decided to pursue his dream of working for Walt Disney, and they moved to
Arcadia, California
Arcadia is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located about northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley and at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. It contains a series of adjacent parks consisting of th ...
. There he attended
Arcadia High School while David Tao Sr. realized his dream of working as an animator in Disney Burbank.
Tao's parents later returned to Taiwan where his father began his singing career, leaving him to complete his education in the United States. Left to fend for himself, Tao took on many jobs, including a stint as a civilian employee at the
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...
, without the knowledge of his parents. He attended the
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...
first. He graduated with a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
in psychology from the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
.
Career
Whilst working as a salesman, Tao was offered a job by Taiwanese producer Wang Chih-ping and went back to Taiwan, initially writing, and later producing songs for many singers before releasing his self-titled album ''David Tao'' in 1997. He has since released four more albums, a live concert recording and a compilation of his best songs. Tao is a prolific composer and songwriter and has written songs for fellow artists such as
A-Mei
Kulilay Amit (, born 9 August 1972), better known by her stage name A-Mei, is a Taiwanese Puyuma singer and record producer. In 1996, she made her singing debut and released her album, ''Sisters''. Her albums ''Truth'' (2001), ''Amit'' (2009), ...
and
S.H.E
S.H.E is a Taiwanese girl group whose members are Selina Jen, Hebe Tien, and Ella Chen. They formed in 2001 and are managed by HIM International Music but decided not to renew their contract in 2019 due to having their own management company.
...
''David Tao'' (1997)
In 1997, with the help of Wang and another Taiwanese producer, Jim Lee, Tao released his self-titled first album (''David Tao''), under an independent label called
Shock Records
Shock Records (now part of Shock Entertainment) is an Australian independent record label.
History
The three founding members had all previously worked in music retail or distribution: Williams for a Melbourne distribution company called "Musi ...
, set up by Taiwanese pop singer Jin Ruei-yao, and her husband. This album set a record in Taiwan during the 9th Golden Melody Awards as the first album from a new singer ever to be nominated for a total of five awards—Best Newcomer, Best Singer, Best Producer, Best Song and Best Album.
The song ''Airport 10.30'' first caught people's attention, but it was the simply arranged, melodic ''I Love You'' that became one of Tao's signature tunes. The album also featured an
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
song, Spring Wind, which was a new R&B version of a favorite old Taiwanese song. Tao sang all the vocals in this song, which still stands today, widely regarded as one of the best
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
songs in Chinese.
''Airport 10.30'' was also nominated for the MTV Awards for Best Chinese Video in 1998 along with
Coco Lee
Coco Lee (; born Ferren Lee, 17 January 1975) is a Hong Kong-American singer-songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actress. Lee's career began in Hong Kong and then expanded to Taiwan. Her single, "Do You Want My Love" also entered the US m ...
, who became the eventual winner.
Tao won two of the awards, namely Best Newcomer and Best Producer, becoming the first newcomer/singer to also win a Best Producer award. Tao's first album was notable for the excellent production which, remarkably, was done in Tao's home in Los Angeles entirely. The album also broke new ground in the music style and arrangement with its strong Western-influenced
R&B flavor.
Tao shot to an unprecedented meteoric rise to fame following the release of ''David Tao''. Unable to cope with the sudden media attention, he flew back to Los Angeles soon afterwards.
Between ''David Tao'' and his next album, besides releasing a remixed
Bastard Pop
A mashup (also mesh, mash up, mash-up, blend, bastard pop or bootleg) is a creative work, usually a song, created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, typically by superimposing the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumenta ...
ep, writing and producing songs for various hit Taiwanese singers, notably a theme song which became one of Taiwanese boyband Tension's hit songs, ''I'll Be With You'', Tao was not heard on the Mandarin-Pop scene for a long while as he quietly disappeared into obscurity.
''I'm OK'' (1999)
In 1999, two years after his first album, Tao released his second album ''I'm OK''. This album was claimed to be a best-selling album by breaking the previous record by selling 600,000 copies, yet various critics had claimed that the impact of ''I'm OK'' was not any stronger than his previous work in terms of style and arrangement.
Notable hits include:
* Rock ballad ''Rain'', ''Angeline''
*
Country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...
-flavored ''Small Town Girl''
*
R&B-influenced ''Just a Friend''
* ''Leave'', a soul number.
* ''Close to You'', a love ballad.
* ''Tuberose'', a catchy
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
remake of a traditional Chinese song.
In this album, Tao attempted many musical styles, including, unsurprisingly, his favorite rock music. In fact, some critics have noted that each of his songs are different from one another, in terms of their style and music arrangement.
Tao was nominated for six GMA awards for ''I'm OK'' – Best Album, Best Producer, Best Singer, Best Video, Best Song and Best Song Arrangement. He only won the Best Producer Award on the GMA, but ''Rain'' later went on to win Best Chinese Video at the 2000 MTV Music Awards.
''Black Tangerine'' (2002)
In 2002, Tao released "Black Tangerine". Some notable songs in this post-911 album, of which he derived much of his inspiration from:
* ''Black Tangerine'', a hard-hitting rock song.
* ''Moon Over My Heart'', an updated old Mandarin hit re-rendered in R&B style.
* ''My Anata'', a Japanese-influenced rock number.
* ''Angel'', a love ballad.
* ''22'', a catchy tune depicting the woes of a girl in crossroads.
* ''Butterfly'', an under-rated song which he penned about his relationship with God.
* ''Katrina'', a surprise demo he wrote and sang entirely in English.
* ''Dear God'', a song he wrote for 911.
* ''Melody'', a song for a most important woman in his life.
What set ''Black Tangerine'' apart was the strong social commentary, including a track consisting of various actual Taiwanese news snippets of unrelated family tragedies and public incidents, placing the state of Taiwanese society in a somewhat negative point of view.
Dear God tells about the sadness of Tao regarding a mother of a victim who has died in 911 and stared at her son's picture and expected him to revive. Tao uses his song as weapon to bitterly criticize terrorists. Also, this song expressed Tao's voice that love was gradually neglected by this society; more and more people concern about money and drama more than love and equality today. Melody was written for his ex-girlfriend whose name is Melody. Tao and melody were in a relationship when Tao was 16 years old. This song was an important memory to Tao.
''Black Tangerine'' won various awards in Asia but was, incidentally, overlooked for the Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan, where the album was originally intended for.
Tao has since held a series of successful concerts in Hong Kong,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
and Singapore in 2003, having already won many fans over with his signature simplistic style.
''The Great Leap'' (2005)
In 2005, Tao released his fourth album, ''
The Great Leap''. It earned four nominations at
17th Golden Melody Awards and won the "Best Album Award".
Notable songs in the album include:
* ''Ghost'' (鬼), the first single of the album, showcasing an eclectic mix of 80's Disco synth with Linkin Park-esque Metal & Rap elements. The lyrical style, a continuation of the social commentary from the previous album, describes a person's fears among a mass media-driven society that is getting too close for comfort.
* ''Susan Said'' (Susan 說), a track that combines
Beijing Opera
Peking opera, or Beijing opera (), is the most dominant form of Chinese opera, which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became fully developed and recognize ...
's unique singing accent and instrumental arrangement with Tao's signature R&B style.
* ''Love Can'' (就是愛你), An infectious sing-along ballad about love. A throwback to his signature tune, "I Love You" from his debut album.
* ''Who Do You Love'' (愛我還是他), The first ballad single off the album which had tremendous commercial appeal.
* ''Art of War'' (孫子兵法), nominated for Best Arrangement in 2006's Taiwan 17th Golden Melody Awards, this rock hit featured the "12 Girls Band" (女子十二樂坊) as Tao and co-arranger, Goh Kheng Long fused hard metal and traditional Chinese instruments into a song leaden with socially critical lyrics.
''Beautiful'' (2006)
A fifth studio album by Tao was released on August 4, 2006. "Beautiful" was a successful album which had three nominations in GMA, being nominated with Best Song, Best Composer and Best Male Vocalist. Despite Tao being a GMA veteran, he never won Best vocalist and this time this was also no exception with Tao only winning Best Song with his ''Marry Me Today''. Among the more popular songs in the album are the title song ''Too beautiful'', another old song restyled into Tao's signature arrangement, ''Can't Get You Outta My Mind'', and a duet song with
Jolin Tsai
Jolin Tsai (; ; born September 15, 1980) is a Taiwanese singer, songwriter, and actress. Referred to as the " Queen of C-Pop", she is considered one of the most influential figures in Chinese popular culture. She is known for her continual rein ...
, ''Marry Me Today''.
''Opus 69'' (2009)
Tao's sixth album was released on August 21, 2009. It marks the return of Tao, and he developed the album with a blend of R&B, Rock and Soft Ballads.
''Hello Goodbye'' (2013)
Four years after ''Opus 69'', David Tao finally returns with the new album Hello Goodbye. The album was released on June 11, 2013. In this album, he integrated musical elements of yesterday – like classical guitar, synthesizer and harmonica – into contemporary melodies and arrangements. David teamed up with fellow singer-songwriters Tanya Chua and Crowd Lu as well as Sharon Kwan on multiple songs. Other than working with longtime collaborators waa and Ge Da Wei, he also invited Lin Xi, Huang Ting and Wu Hsiung to pen lyrics for the album.
Personal life
Tao speaks in fluent
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
and English.
Tao married Penny Chiang on August 31, 2014. It was revealed in 2015 that Tao had engaged in an extramarital affair with artist manager Ada Yang Zi Qing, whom he had first met at a post-concert celebratory dinner in late 2010, which continued even after his 2014 marriage with Chiang. When the website ''
Quan Min Xing Tan'' published an interview with Yang which revealed their affair though
WeChat
WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has bee ...
chat screenshots in June 2015, Tao denied the cheating and threatened to file charges against Yang and the publishing website for the "malicious lies." However, Yang responded with a vow to release more evidence of her affair with Tao, and challenged him to file the charges, saying she too could afford to hire a lawyer.
On July 7, 2015, Tao held a 40-minute press conference with his agent and lawyer, where he admitted that he was cheating on his wife with Yang. "Penny, Father-in-law, Mother-in-law, please forgive me. Mum, I let you down. But thank you for not leaving me and for loving me... I made a mistake, I am very sorry and I’m very ashamed of what I did," Tao said, thanking his friends and fans for their continued support.
On February 14, 2019, Tao and Penny Chiang had their first son who is nicknamed "Bonbon".
Discography
Awards
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tao, David
1969 births
Living people
Los Angeles Police Department officers
Singers from California
People from Arcadia, California
Hong Kong emigrants to Taiwan
Taiwanese Christians
Taiwanese Protestants
Taiwanese emigrants to the United States
Taiwanese male singers
Taiwanese Mandopop singer-songwriters
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Taiwanese idols