Las melodías que identifican a cada época parecen acercarse unas a otras. La música occidental, rica en formas y estructuras durante siglos, mostró una tendencia reciente hacia la uniformidad y una mayor sencillez.

Un estudio publicado en la revista Scientific Reports detectó que la música clásica y el jazz, reconocidos por su riqueza y diversidad, se acercaron a las estructuras de los géneros populares actuales.

El interrogante central para los investigadores Niccolò Di Marco, Edoardo Loru, Alessandro Galeazzi, Matteo Cinelli y Walter Quattrociocchi -de las Universidades de Tuscia, Sapienza de Roma y Padua– fue si la música perdió complejidad por el avance de la tecnología y la influencia de las plataformas digitales.

El equipo buscó rastrear si los algoritmos y el consumo inmediato de contenido musical modificaron la diversidad original.

Las plataformas digitales transformaron la producción y escucha de música. Se despertaron dudas sobre una posible pérdida de riqueza musical.

El estudio abordó además si, en la era del streaming, se produjo una simplificación de la estructura melódica y armónica.

Otros trabajos ya habían reportado una tendencia a la simplificación en letras de canciones y en la comunicación digital. Faltaba una evaluación cuantitativa y profunda de la estructura musical occidental a lo largo del tiempo.

El objetivo concreto fue “ofrecer una perspectiva cuantitativa sobre la evolución de la complejidad melódica y armónica en la música occidental” y verificar si la simplificación alcanzó la esencia de la música.

El equipo utilizó el MetaMIDI Dataset, una base pública con más de 400.000 archivos MIDI, y seleccionó cerca de 20.000 piezas con datos de título, artista y género. Los archivos contienen información precisa sobre notas, duraciones y tempo, como si fueran un mapa digital de cada composición.

Cada pieza se representó como una red de nodos (notas) y enlaces (transiciones entre notas), lo que facilitó el análisis matemático de la estructura musical. Este método permitió medir la complejidad de cada obra mediante indicadores como densidad, reciprocidad y entropía.

La muestra incluyó seis géneros principales: clásica, jazz, rock, pop, electrónica y hip hop. El estudio observó que la música clásica y el jazz, aunque partían de una mayor complejidad, redujeron su diversidad estructural en las últimas décadas.

“La música clásica exhibe una tendencia descendente, mientras que el jazz muestra un aumento inicial de complejidad, seguido de una caída y estabilización”, señaló el equipo.

Identificaron que las diferencias entre géneros persisten, pero en los últimos años los valores de complejidad se acercaron, y la música clásica y el jazz se alinearon con los géneros populares.

Para asegurar la validez de los resultados, los investigadores emplearon modelos nulos y técnicas de inteligencia artificial para estimar fechas de composición.

El estudio también analizó los intervalos musicales característicos de cada género y aplicó UMAP, una técnica de visualización de datos, para observar la evolución de la diversidad musical a lo largo de las décadas.

La comparación de obras previas a 1950 con creaciones recientes mostró una complejidad mayor en el pasado y un proceso de simplificación y convergencia en la actualidad.

El equipo sugirió sumar análisis de audio, texto y aspectos interpretativos a los datos de notas, para capturar dimensiones musicales que los archivos MIDI no contienen.

Entre las limitaciones, los investigadores señalaron que el análisis de notas excluye variables como el timbre, la producción y el contexto cultural, y que la inteligencia artificial aplicada a la datación puede tener márgenes de error.

La conclusión fue contundente: la música occidental reciente perdió complejidad estructural, aunque esa riqueza podría haberse desplazado a otras dimensiones aún no exploradas.

“Nuestros hallazgos abren vías para la investigación interdisciplinaria, uniendo musicología, ciencia de datos y sociología para indagar cómo los entornos digitales moldean la creatividad y el consumo”, concluyeron los investigadores.

FIRST ON FOX: The House Judiciary Committee escalated scrutiny of the Southern Poverty Law Center on Thursday, demanding documents from the nonprofit after a federal indictment alleged the group funneled millions in donor funds to extremist organizations.

Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter first obtained by Fox News Digital to SPLC President Bryan Fair that the GOP-led committee was investigating any coordination between the SPLC and the Biden Department of Justice and FBI, both of which had used the left-wing nonprofit as a resource. 

Jordan demanded a slate of documents from the SPLC by April 30, a request that comes after his Republican counterparts in the Senate also ramped up scrutiny of the SPLC and after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche hinted at more possible indictments related to the group.

The intensifying investigations into the SPLC, expanding from the DOJ to Congress, come after Jordan’s committee previously investigated the group, saying it was known for «maligning several mainstream conservative and religious organizations as ‘hate groups,’» such as Moms for Liberty and Turning Point USA, and that the Biden DOJ improperly used it for civil rights enforcement.

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«Publicly available documents revealed how the Justice Department partnered closely with the SPLC during the Biden-Harris Administration, including scheduling regular meetings, giving the SPLC early access to federal law-enforcement data, and allowing SPLC employees to train federal prosecutors,» Jordan wrote. «The new information about the SPLC alleged in the indictment only raises further questions.»

Jordan also noted that a controversial internal memo originating from the FBI Richmond Field Office during Director Christopher Wray’s tenure, which framed so-called radical-traditionalist Catholics as a group of people more prone to violent crime, used the SPLC as a source for its findings. The memo surfaced in 2023, with Wray later retracting it and saying it was an «appalling» breach of religious freedom.

Jordan’s letter pointed out that the Richmond memo was among more than a dozen FBI documents that used the SPLC as a resource.

The DOJ on Tuesday charged the SPLC with several counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit money laundering, alleging the group defrauded donors for more than a decade.

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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke during a press conference alongside FBI Director Kash Patel at the Department of Justice April 21, 2026, in Washington, D.C., about the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center on charges related to money laundering. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Prosecutors said the nonprofit, which promotes its efforts to fight White supremacy, misled donors by using shell companies to mask how donor funds were used. More than $3 million was paid through the shell companies to informants who participated in activities involving the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, among others, prosecutors alleged.

«The SPLC’s paid informants … engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website,» prosecutors wrote, noting one informant allegedly went so far as to help plan the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

«Congress has an important interest in protecting Americans from extremist violence and criminal activity,» Jordan wrote in his letter. «The Committee on the Judiciary has been conducting oversight of the Biden-Harris Administration’s close coordination with the SPLC on federal civil rights matters.»

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Neo-Nazis, the alt-right and White supremacists take part in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. (Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday set its sights on a woman previously affiliated with the SPLC who was a federal judge and Biden appointee serving a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

«Every individual associated with SPLC should have to answer for what they knew about the organization’s extremist ties, and when,» committee Republicans wrote in a statement on X. 

«That includes Nancy Abudu, SPLC’s former litigation director who Biden appointed as a lifetime judge on the 11th Circuit.»

Just before the DOJ announced charges, Fair said in a public statement that the federal investigation was political rather than sincere.

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«They have made no secret of who they want to protect and who they want to destroy,» Fair said, noting the group no longer works with paid informants but adding they had «risked their lives» to infiltrate extremist groups.

Fox News Digital reached out to the SPLC and Abudu’s chambers for comment.

None of the Democratic candidates running to replace outgoing California Governor Gavin Newsom gave him below a B-minus grade on combating homelessness, a moment that Republicans sharing the debate stage on Wednesday evening called a laughable evaluation of the state’s problem.

«My goodness, of course it’s an F,» Republican candidate Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, said.

«It shames our state, the situation with homelessness. We have about 10% of the U.S. population, around 50% of the country’s homeless.»

The moment forced the four Democratic candidates to weigh in on efforts to unwind a crisis that has only worsened in recent years despite billions in funding. It also highlighted a reluctance among Democrats to critique Newsom, who has yet to make an endorsement in the race. 

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«I’m a notoriously tough grader, but I would probably give him a B on homelessness,» Katie Porter, a former Democratic congresswoman, said.

«I don’t think this has been an easy problem to solve, but I do give him a lot of credit for calling attention to the problem.»

Tom Steyer, a billionaire businessman-turned candidate, put Newsom’s performance in the same ballpark.

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«So, I’d give the governor a B-minus on this,» Steyer said.

But one other Democrat, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, made the case that the grade was too low, citing Newsom’s «effort.»

«I would say that the governor has made efforts. We’ve seen him come down to Los Angeles, actually go out and try to clean some of these streets. On effort, I would give him an A,» Becerra said.

Matt Mahan, Xavier Becerra, Chad Bianco, Steve Hilton, Tom Steyer and Katie Porter appear during a gubernatorial debate at KRON Studios in San Francisco Wednesday, April 22, 2026. (Jason Henry/Nexstar/Bloomberg – Pool/Getty Images)

California reported 161,400 people had experienced homelessness on any given night in 2024, according to the California State Senate Housing Committee.

The numbers are higher than when Newsom took office in January 2019.

That year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development put California’s homeless population at 108,400 — 32% less than levels in 2024.

The persistently high rates have thwarted billions in funding to bring the numbers down. California has spent roughly $20 billion on homeless initiatives from 2019 to 2025, according to the California Budget and Policy Center, a left-leaning think tank.

In a 2023 debate with Newsom on Fox News’ «Hannity,» Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis illustrated the acuteness of the homelessness problem by holding up a map of San Francisco, detailing over 270,000 reported instances of feces found on the streets of the city, which was dubbed the «poop map» on social media.

To Republican candidate Chad Bianco, Riverside County’s sheriff, it’s clear the problem has nothing to do with money.

«It is an absolute dismal failure, and anyone that says it’s not is fooling themselves — or trying to fool voters,» Bianco said.

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A trashed punching bag is left at a homeless encampment is seen on the side of the CA-101 highway in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

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«We are not dealing with homeless, so stop calling it homeless. It has nothing to do with homes. These people are suffering from drug and alcohol abuse and mental illness.»

California will hold its gubernatorial primary June 2. The top two candidates will advance to the general election Nov. 3, according to the California Secretary of State.