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Monster: R.E.M. Cast Lindsay Lohan in James Franco-Directed ‘Blue’ Video

R.E.M. Lindsay Lohan James Franco Blue

How did it come to this? Actually, the timeline is quiet clear: R.E.M. release a career-boosting 15th album, Collapse Into Now, and then subsequently quit the music game for good, leaving their legacy untended. As least, we have to assume as much, considering the above 20-month-late music video for “Blue,” which was directed by that never-ending font of strange, James Franco. To be fair, taken on its own, the Patti Smith-featuring song is a narco-poetic mindfuck, and Franco delivers something in kind. In between hazily nostalgic shots of Sunset Boulevard landmarks, we see famously sleazy shutterbug Terry Richardson photographing Lindsay Lohan atop a stove, and footage of Franco himself in drag, presumably from his 2010 Richardson shoot for the cover of Candy magazine. As one YouTube commenter points out, it all feels a bit like a Lana Del Rey daydream, except on the same low-budget vibes as the hazy Hipstamatic dream that was the video for “Love in the Old Days” from Franco’s band Daddy.

So now that you’ve experienced that revisit SPIN’s 10 All-Time Favorite R.E.M. Moments.