Quality French magazine MAGIC picks the 15 best singles of 2008, a nice collection of tracks covering various genres. Check it out then celebrate the new year by making your own top 2008 playlist!

Bonus interview below.

What’s goin’ on in Magic’s world right now? How was 2008 for you?

We just moved in our new offices. In a posh Parisian area. But there are nice little restaurants and good bars all around – and not that expensive. And for Magic, that’s important. 2008 was a heavy year, heavy as loads of interesting work to do.

You just made us a great 2008 Top Singles playlist. Thanks for this but what are your favorite albums of the year?

That’s a tough one. You can check it in our special issue “366 Chroniques”, where we compiled… 366 reviews published this year in Magic. But anyway, here come some: Vampire Weekend’s debut, Portishead “Third”, Metronomy “Nights Out”, Why? “Alopecia”, Sébastien Tellier “Sexuality”… And loads more!

Any bands to check for in 2009?

Delphic, a neworderish new band from (surprise, surprise) Manchester. I think they will support Bloc Party in Paris at the beginning of 2009. Girls, a duo hailing from San Francisco, who cite Lawrence Felt and The Go-Betweens as some of their heroes. Koko Von Napoo, an avant-pop quatuor from Paris: they just had a single out on London based label Trouble Records.

What are you currently listening to?

The Delphic demo, the next albums of Peter Von Poehl (surprising, in a good way) and Morrissey (very Morrissey, in a good way). Oh, and the new Animal Collective psyche-pop trip: brilliant! And like every year around this time, “The Power Of Love” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The long version, obviously. Awesome!

How is the scene in Paris at the moment? any good bands/producers/artists around?

The Parisian scene is quiet at the very moment. We mentioned Koko Von Napoo before, though.

You are still doing a great glossy monthly mag in a difficult moment both in the music industry and in the press industry: how do you see the future of those industries?

As Bernard Sumner “screamed” it in “Confusion”: “The future is mine!”

I do think it’s an interesting time for the press world right now, tough but interesting. Young people use internet to “discover” as many things as they can. But then, they need and they look for a guide. I think magazines can play this part – for real music fans, obviously. As for the music industry, it’s just another way to think about music. The thing is, that for the first time, the big companies are not behind the latest technical revolution to listen to music…and they don’t know how to handle the internet. They are too concerned by the present, without trying and think about the future. But are we going to cry? I mean there will always be independent labels, interesting new bands and bad ones.

How important is the internet for you as a media? Could you let us know a bit more about your site?

Internet is very important for us. It’s another editorial world that’s very exciting. We don’t do the same things in the magazine and on the net. I mean, we keep the same editorial politic, but we approach it differently. As much as we can, we use the technology that Internet allows to. We realize loads of video interviews, we put video clips online. Each day, and just for one day, people can listen to a new song. And we also put some of the archives of the magazine. I think people can be interested by reading an interview of Radiohead done back 1997, just before the release of “Ok Computer”.

We are in a world with a lot of different models on the net: what kind of services should be brought to the the table?

On the net, we’re definitely for the free model (which is not that free as people pay to get the connection…). The weak spot of our website is the absence of a player: we want, for 2009, to put as much music as we can. Oh, we just start using the Fairtilizer player on magicrpm.com and we will pursue this experience in the next few months!

Where do you see this whole internet thing going?

I hope there will be more quality to it. It’s impressive: in a few seconds, you can get an info, listen to a track, look at a video. But there are also loads of bullshits, mistakes, bad and wrong information. I do hope we’ll keep the best of what can offer the Internet.

Anything to add?

First & last & always: this could be the Magic motto.

VISIT THE MAGIC WEBSITE