Commentary

Hehehe while I taking break having vanilla slice to celebrate David's birthday, my auntie writes abt David 4 me :)
My first impression of David is probaby like most people - good r&b singer, talented, writes his own songs, but not very popular. So I was surprised that there are 2 Chinese forums devoted to him and one HK website, one Japanese, one French website, and now one blog. He doesn't seemed to be the kind of singer with a huge following. He doesn't has the trendy cool image of Jay Chou or the poster looks of Wang Lee Hom.
I always thought most of his fans are very much older from late twenties onwards because he always has very decent sales, even though most pop CDs are usually bought by teenagers. Still David's CD cannot be fully categorised as pop. Compared to Jay and Lee Hom, David's music has always been the most mature. I said this even though I am closer to Lee Hom's age, but Lee Hom music has always been targeted for the young. I cannot put on Lee Hom CD and relax, the way I can with David.
I cannot said to be an avid David fan and didn't even attend his Soul Power concert but whenever he has a new album, I will definitely get it. I probably play his music more than any other Chinese artist. I think most of David fans fall into this category so therefore he is seen as not as popular as Jay or Lee Hom, the other two talented male Taiwanese artists. Still David has been very low profile, he only does music and hardly venture into TV series or movies, or seen in commercials until recently.
Still popularity doesn't necessary mean quality. How many top 40 hits can you remember from last year, 2 years before, 5 years before? Not many I would say but most people would know Beethoven's Symphony No 5 or Mozart's A Little Night Music. The best music are the sort that last and David's music is very lasting. Airport 10.30, Liu Sha, I Love You, Rain, Regular Friends, hits from his 1997 self titled album and 1999 I'm OK album are still as familiar today.
He is probably the only Chinese artist I know whose hit from 5 years ago was used in a commercial. Rain from his I'm Ok album was used in 2 Sprite commercials with David altering the words to suit each commercial. It seemed to be very effective and successful, and hopefully may start a trend where commercials used artist's past hits, rather than get them to record a new song and then promote it in their newly released album. I always thought that is a very unfortunate way to promote an album, to tie in with a product that the artist is endorsing. Even the great Faye Wong did it and forever ruined my respect for her.
Of course David has always been compared to Jay Chou, however I cannot comment on Jay's music as I hardly listen to him. But I do know that while I was doing some research on CD piracy that quite a few of David's songs ended up on pirated Jay's CD and a lot of Jay fans especially in China had always thought those songs like Tian Tian, Liu Sha, Leave, Our Love were Jay's. Even djs on radio had been know to play David's songs and mistaken them for Jay's.
And one Chinese music critic writing a lengthy piece on Jay even mistakenly quote lyrics from Rain as written by Jay, probably because Jay sang the song during his concert when he invited David to be his guest. So it will be fair to say the comparision is because some of Jay's r&b songs sounded a lot like David's. Still even Black Tangerine has been mistaken for Jay's so go figure. I think it must be terrible if your fans cannot even recognise your voice or know which songs are not yours. I honestly don't think that any David fan will ever mistaken Jay's song for David's.
So Happy Birthday David! (seeing as you are celebrating in LA) I am glad to see that you have more fans than I ever thought. I hope you will last another 7 years, and another 7 years after that.