Actually I can see that from a musical angle -- Bing may have been the first to "sing for the record/mic" in a sense. That is a pretty huge deal, but there's still a big distinction between "musical innovator" and "cultural force."
Michael Jackson's vocal stylings -- where every over-emphasized intonation and breath becomes it's own "hook" (JAMON! ungh! OOOOO!!!) -- has been tremendously influential in recent decades (Whitney, Justin, Britney, Beyonce, Fiona, Joss, probably this Amy Whingehouse I keep hearing about too.)
I think a big part of the decline in the "musical qualities" of pop in the last couple of decades (chord changes and melodies replaced by looped beats and samples) has everything to do with the foregrounding of the "hook-laden vocal" -- which serves to focus attention of the "celebrity-ness" of the singer. Cuz at this point "popular music" is entirely about the "popular" (celebrity) and not the "music" (clothes and hair are probably just as important as what's going behind the hook-singing; "music" itself really isn't all that important any more, relative to new fangled culture-transmitters like "videogames" and "the Internet".)
"Pop star" to the next level!
But all of this is really a tangent away from "rock" . . . . but to take it back to the top, Elvis' big influence was really on "pop" and "celebrity" rather than mere "rock" (where he was merely one influence, not "THE" influence.)
It's that "iconic" thing again -- the "it" factor which makes Elvis immortal while Bing falls down the memory hole -- these days the record biz is all about that "it", not music. Which is another factor in falling CD sales of course -- the music isn't the product anyway, the product is "JUSTIN!" (or whoever) -- and CD's are only one small slice of the revenue stream.
No one buys JUSTIN! CD's because they love music, they buy music CD's because they love JUSTIN!
My guess is at some point the "music industry" per se may go away entirely (it's only been around as long as the automobile anyway, and does anyone expect autos to still be around in a few hundred years?) The time and energy now focused on "music" will move to some other facet of "celebrity-ness" which is more readily marketable in the media & technology environment of the future (looks have been more important than sound for a long time anyway -- which is one more reason Bing is not due for a comeback!)
Music will always still exist of course, but it will be the terrain of a few "hobbyists" and "patrons of the arts" -- like how "painting" is still done today, but doesn't have the relevance it had in the 16th century.
(Us record geeks are basically like "model train hobbyists" or "Trekkies"; we'll always be around, but in small numbers relative to the mainstream of people who are in to "football" or "TV sit-coms".)
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