Which is not to say the original isn't a bit of pop-rock genius, only that it's not as good as the Five Iron Frenzy cover.
Five Iron Frenzy is a Christian ska band, so when I say the ELO version is a little too cheesy, know that I say that despite coming from a place of very high tolerance for cheese.
It's just that even as busy as a ska arrangement can get--and there's like four-part harmony and strings and horns and shit here--it's a little more grounded and a lot peppier than the original, which (and again, it only suffers by comparison) is slower and more than a little overproduced. That might not have been an issue had the song come out 30 years later, but it's possible that the technology just wasn't there in 1978 to put out an electronic art rock song that didn't sound a little washed out in parts.
Meanwhile, Five Iron Frenzy gooses the tempo, replaces some (but not all) of the signature strings with horns, and Jeff Lynne with Reese Roper, who's got the kind of piercing, somewhat nasal tenor endemic to all American music on the punk family tree in the late 1990s. The net result is that this very happy, slightly unconventional tune becomes a dance imperative. You put the ELO version on the jukebox while you're talking to the girl--you put the Five Iron Frenzy version on while you're dancing with her.
The one thing I wish the cover carried over from the original is when they cut the instrumentals in the last chorus. Otherwise my only complaint is that I have to sit to type all this out.
