Oh, to have been on the jury with him.

"Yeah, never mind whether he robbed the store or not, when's Chinese Democracy II coming out? We'll come to a decision when I get a fucking date. Oh, and about that RnRHoF reunion…"

Actually, here's a thought. Picking up on the collaboration idea, maybe they should do a true Queen+ album – do what Iommi and Slash and Santana have done, with Brian and Roger collaborating as Queen with a whole bunch of different vocalists.

Call it Queen+ Icons, or somesuch. Get Gaga, Axl, Dave Grohl, Lambert, George Michael, Justin Hawkins and anyone else who's ever claimed to have been inspired by Queen on there, each doing one or two tracks. Bung in a couple of Brian/Roger vocal tracks. And then round it off with the two Freddie/Michael Jackson songs.

Pretty much the only way to match the versatility of Freddie is to get a whole bunch of different singers working across the genres. And it'd keep the fans who insist that Queen should ONLY be about Freddie reasonably happy, as the band wouldn't be replacing him. Indeed, you could even use some of the remaining fragmentary Freddie vocals and turn them into duets with the new singers.

It'd essentially be a studio version of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, but with new tracks.

Now THAT would sell. You'd have some guaranteed hit singles and videos in there with the likes of Gaga, and you wouldn't be asking the megastars to commit to a tour fronting Queen.

While it's good that things seem to be moving in the direction of more music – and all credit to DJ if he's the impetus behind that – I can't help but feel sad that we're never going to get to hear those Buckethead/Robin tracks from the Chinese sessions.

I suspect that having put this band together, Axl's going to want to ensure that the next album is actually recorded by this band, rather than being a grab-back of tracks recorded over a decade. If nothing else, it'd be good for the promotion and alleviate some of the criticisms of GN'R being a revolving door of musicians.

But... no more Bucket/Robin tracks.

Plus they also need to be good songwriters. Getting all that in one package – and finding someone who has all those qualities and isn't enjoying a stellar solo career (or isn't tied to a band already) is well-nigh impossible.

It's the same problem that Queen have faced for the last couple of decades – so VR has a struggle on its hands.

For my money the most versatile person they've played with is still – yeah, I know, I'll keep banging this drum – Chester Bennington. As Classic Rock said, he combines Axl's vocal oomph with Scott's "skinny-cool" vibe, and is therefore as close as you'll get to someone who'd be acceptable to both GN'R and Scott fans. But I'll allow that I don't know how good he is as a songwriter.

He should just fucking leak the Corey demos. Stick 'em up on a torrent and say, "Sorry guys, dunno who could've done that..." when the other VR guys ask how it happened.

Then when the fans go mad for it, he can turn to Slash and go, "Told you so."