Have you ever wanted to learn about classical music without first having to absorb all the theory or wade through lots of tedious music? Well, your most effective introduction to classical music may be the intensely passionate and highly tuneful music of Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky. AMG's Blair Sanderson explains why this great Russian composer might be your ideal guide.

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Its title aside (which suggests that Hoagy Carmichael was some distant forerunner of Jackson Browne or Dar Williams, a case that would be both difficult and a little absurd to make), there's no doubt that First of the Singer Songwriters: Key Cuts 1924-1946, a four-disc, 101-track collection from English reissue label JSP, is carefully and lovingly assembled, and it outlines an impressive and amazing legacy. Carmichael was technically a singer/songwriter, of course, in the sense that he was quite capable of performing his songs at a commercial level, and he certainly had a public persona as an unassuming, laid-back, slightly world weary but jivin' jazz cat out of Indiana, but his songs didn't depend on that persona in order to get across, and that, more than anything, sets him apart from most if not all of the so-called singer/songwriters of the present day.

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Sure, it was only three years ago, but we are still crazy about 2006's debuts (Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Burial), breakouts (Amy Winehouse, Gnarls Barkley), bold makeovers (Christina Aguilera), and early farewells (J Dilla), not to mention the less eventful but nonetheless excellent releases from the established veterans (Ghostface Killah, Jarvis Cocker, Sonic Youth). Over a couple hundred favorite albums and singles of 2006 are listed by our editors. Maybe you'll discover, or be reminded of, a few that you missed. The AllMusic Loves series will continue to roll through this first decade of the 2000s during the next few weeks, as we will revisit 2007 and 2008 prior to looking back at 2009.

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