First, he was once beautiful, astonishingly beautiful, and that fact contributed so much both to the rapidity of his rise and the awfulness of his decline.

Beauty was almost as important to his success as race was. Same voice, same talent, same songs sung by a white Fats Domino?

The impact would have been nothing like what it was. Music created and drove the phenomenon that was Elvis, but it was only part of what made that phenomenon so overwhelming.

Of course he did end up looking like a white Fats Domino (worse, actually - Fats has never looked swollen or appeared glum), and that’s the second fact: He became - he remains in some measure - a joke.

By the time of his death, Elvis had already proven himself the ultimate Elvis impersonator. He stays encased, liposuction-resistant, within the bombast, the karate chops, the jumpsuits, the dying on the toilet. Beauty and the beast, that at least has a track record. But beauty and the punch line? As always, Elvis Aron Presley was a category of one.

He would have been 75 on Friday. This culture is as crazy for birthdays and anniversaries as it is for awards. It’s all the same principle: Any excuse for a high-profile party, especially one with lucrative commercial prospects. And who, even 30 years after his death, might offer better commercial prospects than the one figure who’s been on a first-name basis with the planet for the past half century? Popes and monarchs require numerals. Mao Zedong, Muhammad Ali, Bob Dylan: They have to settle for a surname. With all due respect to Mssrs. Costello, Stojko, Peacock, and Mitchell, there is only one Elvis.

Yet there’s a detectable hesitation about observing - let alone celebrating - Elvis’s reaching three score and 15. It’s an event, but certainly not an . . . Event. One reason, of course, is that parties are more popular with a guest of honor, and Elvis left the building 32 years ago. Beyond that, there’s the matter of those two facts, the beauty and the joke it became. They go a long way toward accounting for the relative lack of fuss.

There’s some fuss, to be sure. The most notable birthday tie-in is RCA/Legacy’s four-disc “Elvis 75: Good Rockin’ Tonight.’’ The 100 tracks include all the greatest hits (and Elvis, don’t forget, had a lot of greatest hits), as well as album cuts, live performances, and rarities, including his very first recording, “My Happiness,’’ which he cut for his mother, Gladys, as a pay-to-record-yourself session back where it all began, at Sun Records, in Memphis.

It’s hard to imagine a better musical introduction to Elvis than “Elvis 75.’’ Completists and connoisseurs of the incongruous have another option: “Elvis: The Complete Masters,’’ consisting of all 711 recordings by Elvis released during his lifetime. Incongruity comes courtesy of the label, the Franklin Mint. That’s right, Elvis as somewhat dubious investment-quality collectible - and yours for just $489 (plus $10 shipping and handling). Somewhere Colonel Parker is all smiles.