Surely, even in our worst nightmares, no one saw this coming. Lady GaGa has collaborated with a few people—Mark Ronson and Marilyn Manson, for instance—and talked about collaborating with others, including unlikely candidates like Miley Cyrus. But now she’s talking about teaming up with Michael Bolton, and she sounds serious. As serious as she ever gets, anyway:

Speaking to Metro, Bolton revealed it was the Poker Face singer who approached him: ‘I was taking a break from production when my manager and the label tag-teamed me on the phone about writing with a young artist named Lady Gaga who I had never heard of… they said that she was a huge fan of mine and wanted to write with me.”

The last time anyone even thought of Michael Bolton was about ten years ago, when Conan O’Brien spent a year or so making roughly ten billion jokes about his bizarre vocal stylings. But he seems determined to go out with a bang, creating a vortex of suckitude that threatens to put an end to life as we know it. Bolton managed to close on a graceful note: “She reminded me of a young Madonna—with more exuberance and emphasis on the art rather than the marketing.” Way to twist the knife, Michael. But it’s small compensation for the approaching trainwreck.