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Boybands let girls fall in love for the first time – so grief for Liam Payne is heartbreakingly painful
With their perfect hair, kindly demeanour and songs about thrilling romance, boybands such as One Direction induce feelings that have much to teach us about life
Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty ImagesMuch dismissed by Serious Music Fans, the songs are often incredible – precision engineered by top songwriters to romance swathes of people while sounding as if they are aimed just at you. They gently promise us that we are beautiful even if we don’t know it, that everything else will be OK as long as we love them, that one day someone will obsess sorrowfully over the lipstick mark we left on a coffee cup. Liam Payne’s death, so stark and horribly real, induces a much more traditional feeling of grief than the one experienced in the wake of a boyband breakup.
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