Goodnight, sweet shirtless prince.

If the deaths of Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and Patrick Swayze haven't filled you with enough grieving for people you don't actually know, today we mourn the passing of another great.

On September 16, 2009, Filip Nikolic, 35, was found dead in his Parisian apartment.
Of course, you all know Filip from the greatest French contribution to music since Serge Gainsbourg, 2B3.

A friend explained this to me.

"Yes, you know, the group from the 90's..2B3."

[Increasingly well-known blank stare]

"Get it? It's a play on words. "

[crickets chirping]

"2B3.... TWO BE FFFRREE"

After a solid five minutes of hysterical laughter, I regained my composure and started thinking. This is quite possibly the most genius musical move of the past 15 years! A name that makes fun of French people's inability to pronounce the "th" sound? Sold BACK to them?
Their manager must have been English. I would like to shake that man's hand.

Now, I know it isn't fair to make fun of what a country produces out of its boy-band era, but we did manage to produce Justin Timberlake. Who is by all accounts, awesome. Pfff to you, other countries!

So then there's the music.

Behold, a three-man choreographed threat to every French man's masculinity:



I wish France had a "Behind the Music." I can just see it now. "For years, they trolled the streets, trying to sell their musical trio to chest-waxing salons across Europe..."