Minneapolis, Minnesota

Everything Minneapolis is known for

68 songs mention this city 785 artists from here

Minneapolis, Minnesota, a major Midwestern city, is home to a rich musical landscape. With 785 artists calling it home and 68 songs in our collection mentioning the city, its influence is clear. Iconic artists like Prince, known for songs such as "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry", hail from Minneapolis. The city also fostered the "Minneapolis sound," a subgenre of funk rock that emerged in the late 1970s, pioneered by Prince and Lipps Inc..

Music in Minneapolis

Songs About Minneapolis

Purple Lamborghini
Rick Ross
100%
Arthur’s Song
Atmosphere
98%
"38th street station"
Minnesota Girls
The Shackletons
98%
"I’m kicking it with my friends at the 7th St. Entry"
Reflections
Atmosphere
96%
"The first time she met the devil was at First Avenue"
Purple Rain
Prince
90%
"I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain"
minneapolis
luke callen
78%
Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
Tom Waits
77%
"I'm pregnant and living on 9th Street"
When Doves Cry
Prince
70%
I wanna be your lover
prince
70%
Let's Go Crazy
Prince
65%
1999
Prince
60%
"I was dreaming when I wrote this"
Weeping in the Promised Land
John Fogerty
60%
"All the people are cryin' your last words, "I can’t breathe""
Des Moines
The Milk Carton Kids
55%
"Minneapolis could take me home"
Kiss
Prince
55%
The Bigger Picture
Lil Baby
54%
"people protesting in Minneapolis escalated"
Hornets! Hornets!
The Hold Steady
51%
"By the time it gets out to suburban Minneapolis"
GodLovesUgly
Atmosphere
49%
"Once upon a time in Minneapolis, yo"
Rock the Bells
Ll Cool J
36%
"You hated Michael and Prince all the way, ever since"
Stevie Nix
The Hold Steady
25%
"And when we hit the twin cities"
Hot Soft Light
The Hold Steady
25%
"I was France Ave. when they came out dancing"

Showing top 20 of 68 songs

Artists From Minneapolis

P
Prince
r-n-b Pop: 75
A
Adrianne Lenker
folk Pop: 72
T
The Trashmen
rock Pop: 62
P
Prof
hip-hop Pop: 62
D
Detroit
rock Pop: 62
L
Libianca
folk Pop: 61
L
Lipps Inc.
pop Pop: 61
L
Lipps, Inc.
pop Pop: 60
A
Auburn
r-n-b Pop: 59
K
Kublai Khan
metal Pop: 59
S
Semisonic
indie Pop: 58
B
Babes In Toyland
metal Pop: 57
M
Marcy Playground
rock Pop: 57
P
Propaganda
hip-hop Pop: 56
N
Next
r-n-b Pop: 56
H
Hot Freaks
pop Pop: 56
M
Monk
hip-hop Pop: 56
A
Atmosphere
hip-hop Pop: 55
M
Morris Day and The Time
r-n-b Pop: 55
S
Soul Asylum
indie Pop: 55

Showing top 20 of 785 artists

Rivers & Roads in Song near Minneapolis

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Minneapolis.

Mississippi River 135 songs Interstate 35 27 songs

Musical Heritage

First Avenue: The 'Purple Rain' Club RoadyGoat

1970

First Avenue, at 701 First Avenue North in downtown Minneapolis, is the star-spangled black nightclub at the heart of Prince's 1984 film 'Purple Rain.' The building opened in 1937 as the city's Art Deco Greyhound bus depot, ran 31 years as a station, and became a music club in 1970. Prince's team paid the venue a reported one hundred thousand dollars to film in the main room in late 1983, and the current stage was custom-built by Prince for the shoot. The chrome stars studding the exterior honor acts who've played there. Prince debuted 'Purple Rain' live on this stage in August 1983; that recording became the single. After Prince's death in 2016, the club's star for him was painted gold.

Paisley Park — Prince's Compound RoadyGoat

1987

Behind plain white walls at 7801 Audubon Road in suburban Chanhassen sits Paisley Park, Prince's 65,000-square-foot home, studio and creative sanctuary for nearly three decades. He recorded much of his later work here, hosted late-night dance parties, and rarely had to leave. Prince died here of an accidental fentanyl overdose on April 21, 2016, at age 57. Six months later, in October 2016, the compound opened to the public as a museum. An urn shaped like Paisley Park itself, holding his ashes, was displayed in the atrium and later moved into the building's vault, brought out briefly for anniversaries. The complex is unmarked from the road by design — Prince wanted the focus on the music made inside, not the building.

17.8 mi away

History of Minneapolis

Minneapolis, MN RoadyGoat

Minneapolis, a city whose name itself whispers of water, has nurtured more than just flour and industry. The flow of the Mississippi, once powering mills that defined the city, seems to have also fueled a current of creativity and ambition in its people. From these streets emerged figures who’ve shaped the national landscape, whether in music, politics, or sport.

Crystal Was Named for a Lake, Not a Mineral RoadyGoat

1860

Crystal, Minnesota, sounds like it ought to sit on a vein of quartz, all sparkling mineral and geode. It doesn't. The name has nothing to do with crystals you'd dig out of the ground. The town grew out of Crystal Lake Township, organized in eighteen sixty, and the township took its name from a small local lake. That lake was called Crystal for one simple reason: its water was so clear, so clean, that early settlers described it as crystal-clear. The naturalist Warren Upham, who cataloged Minnesota's place names, recorded the same story for the state's other Crystal lakes, all named for the clarity of the water. So the "crystal" here is about a lake you could see straight to the bottom of, not a rock. A clarity of water, frozen into a name.

6.0 mi away

First Avenue

1970

Iconic Minneapolis nightclub featured in Prince's Purple Rain and launchpad for the city's music scene.

Mill City Museum

1880

Museum built into the ruins of the Washburn A Mill, once the largest flour mill in the world.

Target Field

2010

Open-air home of the Minnesota Twins, built to bring outdoor baseball back to Minneapolis after nearly three decades in the Metrodome.

Lake Harriet Bandshell

1888

The fifth bandshell on this site since 1888, hosting free concerts on the shores of Lake Harriet in the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes.

4.6 mi away

Historic Fort Snelling

1820

Military fort at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, sacred Dakota land, and site of internment during the US-Dakota War.

7.3 mi away

Minnehaha Falls

1855

Fifty-three-foot waterfall in Minneapolis made famous by Longfellow's poem The Song of Hiawatha.

5.2 mi away

Everything Near Minneapolis

79 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Minneapolis on the Map
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