Cake

CAKE emerged in California in the early 1990s. With their simple, invigorating rock, drawing on funk, jazz and hip-hop, sprinkled with sunny trumpets, they became popular as soon as their second album Fashion Nugget (1996) was released, thanks to the tracks "The Distance" and the Gloria Gaynor cover "I Will Survive". The John McCrea-led band went on to release a number of equally memorable albums based on a similar recipe, such as 1998's Prolonging the Magic, featuring the hit "Never There", and 2001's Confort Eagle . Since the release of B-Sides and Rarities in 2007, the band - who regretted signing to Columbia for two albums - have gone back to being independent, and have embraced environmental activism.