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David Tao (p=Táo Zhé, born 11 July 1969) is a Taiwanese singer-songwriter. He is well known for creating a crossover genre of R&B and hard rock tunes which has now become his signature style and for having popularized R&B in the Mandopop industry. Tao's accolades include six Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan.
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 in Taipei. Later, his father decided to pursue his dream of working for Walt Disney, and they moved to Arcadia, California. 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, without the knowledge of his parents. He attended the University of California, Irvine first. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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 song, Spring Wind, which was a "modern" R&B version of Bāng Chhun-hong, a famous Taiwanese folk song. Tao sang all the vocals in this song, which still stands today, widely regarded as one of the best a cappella songs in Chinese.
Airport 10.30 was also nominated for the MTV Awards for Best Chinese Video in 1998 along with Coco Lee, 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 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.
Notable hits include:
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.
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. Tao has described his feelings towards Melody through a monologue in his music video, "When you saw someone that gave you the same feeling of your first love in your sixteens, you gonna know that she is the right one". This song was one of the two songs he actually admitted to be dedicated to his ex-girlfriends.
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, Malaysia and Singapore in 2003, having already won many fans over with his signature simplistic style.
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 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".
| +Hito Radio Music Awards |
| HITO Radio 2007 HITO Radio Music Awards winners list February 4, 2007. Retrieved April 20, 2011 |
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