Why are there so few songs about current events?

I must admit that I've never understood the argument that references to outside things make a song instantly dated and therefore useless - I *LOVE* hearing cultural references that make no sense anymore in old songs - I love it when songs are a snapshot of the time when they came out.

hahaha, the fact we haven't had a Madeleine thread on ILE fills me with warm fuzzy happiness. england cricketers wearing yellow ribbons during SECOND test = massive, massive dud

because current events are so fukked ppl are into amerikan idle escapism or blinging fantasies or lollygaging in indie daydreams

most topical pop songs are banal. youre better off reading a newspaper.

the problem is that most of the time when people try to take on polical events in their songs, they end up being these lumbering, heavy-handed anthems that no one cares to listen to. Also, I have the suspicion that while current events are important to some songwriters, there are few who can write a song about them from the heart and not have it come off as bad guilt-inflected high-school-grade poetry.

Why don't people just write non-banal non-heavy handed ones, then? (sincere question, BTW). The calypso songs I'm talking about don't come off that way at all - they're joyous and upbeat even when they're protest songs.

Today's artists are too in awe of Lance Percival.

Country music has songs about soldiers dying in Iraq/coming back shell shocked from Iraq--certainly moving on from boot-in-ass sentiments.