Lily Allen covers ELO, joins book prize panel

In a delirious mash-up of whimsical musical minds, Lily Allen has gone and covered Jeff Lynne's Beatles-worshiping opus "Mr. Blue Sky." Her take on the Electric Light Orchestra classic was originally recorded for a strange little French mobile commercial, and now has leaked to the Internet in its entirety. The results are below, coupled with art from someone with slightly better photo-editing skills than this writer:

Lynne would most likely approve of the spacey synths and firing laser noises, as they're perfectly natural sounds for the ELO spaceship. But axing the song's coda? Listen, Ms. Allen, perhaps the world has a shorter attention span these days, but don't be an evil woman: keep the classic song structure intact.

Meanwhile, the Lily Allen news mill continues to churn out juicy trinkets every day. Most recently, Allen has signed up to judge Britain's Orange prize for fiction writing. At 22, she's the youngest person ever to join the contest's panel. While literary snobs may groan that this development will sound the final death knell of high culture, Orange prize director Kate Mosse urges understanding.

"What matters for a judge is that they are passionate readers and are interested in the idea of a literary prize that seeks to extend reading as much as possible," Mosse told The Guardian. "Not all our judges in the past have been people who have written books - it is as much about being a great reader and having a variety of occupations and ages represented. We hope that all the judges will bring different constituents of readers with them and spread the word."

So, can Lily Allen get the MySpace demographic involved in contemporary literature? Well, they're avid readers of her blog, aren't they?

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