Nikki Webster finds the Yellow Brick Road to her liking, writes CAMERON ADAMS
IF YOU look hard enough you can see Atlanta and Georgia. But we’re not in Kansas, it’s actually deepest Maribyrnong — Highpoint Shopping Centre to be precise — and there’s a whole army of Atlantas, Georgias and Madisons waiting to see Australia’s own Dorothy, little Nikki Webster.
As they wave their Nikki singles under the pop poppet’s nose to get signed (with a heart over the ‘i’ if they’re lucky) they’re not screaming as as they would for a male star. There’s a different kind of feeling on display here: it’s admiration.
For little Nikki is living the dream of young girls the nation over. She’s a household name with a debut album out before her 15th birthday. She’s an email-buddy of Kylie, signed to Farnsey’s record label and about to star in a million-dollar musical production of The Wizard of Oz.
It’s a lot to carry on some seriously small shoulders. In person, Nikki Webster is a bonsai human. She looks about nine. She acts about 39, switching into professional mode when a tape recorder is switched on. “It’s the completion of a dream,” Nikki gushes when talking about her album, like some corporate pop robot twice her age.
The dream is a collective one. When Farnham’s label Gotham snapped up Webster, post-Olympics, they set about turning her into a pop star with the family stamp Farnham is famous for.
The company was livid when journalists dared to question whether a 14-year-old should be singing about the taste of kisses while wearing navel-baring garments. An animated character was even created to be the object of said kisses in the single’s video: a way around the fact that she’s a girl who has never been in love, singing a love song.
Nikki Webster is a one-girl mini-corporation and a major investment in Australia’s musical future. But really, it’s a step into the past. If she’d been born 20 years ago Nikki Webster would have been flashing her toothy smile on Young Talent Time. She is your archetypal old-school, all-round performer: a Y2K Shirley Temple.
Her first pop single (after last year’s Olympic ballad We’ll Be One, discreetly airbrushed from her history by her new record company) Strawberry Kisses hit No.2 and has sold more than 70,000 copies. Her debut album, titled Follow Your Dreams (of course) has songs mimicking every recent pop trend, a corporate record company executive’s idea of what kids are currently buying. It ironically has a song titled Individuality.
She’s been cleverly pitched at kids a little too old for Hi-5 but perhaps too young for Britney Spears. The album is like the Wiggles with all the wiggle removed – a plastic pop record as happy and positive as Nikki herself.
But it’s too easy to be cynical.
Nikki is a rare specimen these days: a perfectly well-adjusted, incredibly polite young lady who comes from a stable, supportive dual-parent home. Any notions of stage parenting are put to rest in about five minutes. She’s driving this dream, becoming the pop star she always wanted to be.
When she talks, it’s more like minutes from a marketing meeting than the thoughts of a school girl: “It’s the completion of a dream to have this album out, it’s got great songs from writers all around the world, it’s fantastic. We picked songs a 14-year-old could sing, and so could younger children and older children.”
Nikki can only work eight hours a day, under children’s law, and the Nikki infrastructure makes sure the golden goose maintains her education. “If I’m away my school sends my work to my tutor, otherwise I go to school (in Sydney). The kids sometimes ask for autographs for their friends, especially the younger kids. I don’t get any special treatment.”
However, those eight hours a day will be tested when she performs eight Wizard of Oz shows a week. But, she says, there’s no pressure. “I’ve done musicals before, I love performing to an audience and getting their reaction each night. I’m looking forward to getting into those ruby slippers.”
Yes, she feels like a pop star, “but I’m still the same person, it hasn’t really changed me”.
It’s easy to see the Australian public forever freeze-framing Nikki Webster as the little girl she is now. Whether she’ll be able to reinvent herself, Drew Barrymore style, remains to be seen.
She seems too grounded to fall into the usual teen-star traps, and is certainly making serious financial hay before she hits that awkward career transitional phase of adolescence.
Yet she’s comfortable with her dual position as role model and career guidance counsellor. “Lots of kids ask how did I get into it. I just tell them I started going to dance classes.”
Follow Your Dreams (BMG) out now.
Source: Herald Sun