Anyone who has been to both Seattle and Minneapolis likely came away with this impression: they're really not all that different. Both are clean, nice, medium-sized cities with plenty of culture and authenticity. If you live in Minneapolis, you could imagine living in Seattle — and vice-versa.
Football, however, will turn the similar cities into a battleground for competition Sunday. You'll find an assessment of the gridiron differences between the Vikings and the Seahawks elsewhere in this section. Right here, with a lot of help from Twitter feedback, let's take a look at the cities themselves:
Defining year for music
Minneapolis: 1984 - Prince's Purple Rain (movie and soundtrack), The Replacements' Let it Be and Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade were all released in 1984, setting the tone for the Twin Cities scene and sound for years to come.
Seattle: 1991: Nirvana's Nevermind, Pearl Jam's Ten and Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger were all 1991 releases, signaling the mainstream birth of the grunge era. That's a pretty heavy lineup.
Advantage: Seattle
Notable TV character
Minneapolis: Mary Richards, a fictional local news producer in Minneapolis played by Mary Tyler Moore on the aptly named The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the 1970s comedy.
