For Rain Man, the formula for Zimmer wasn't much different, teaming with assistant and eventual Media Ventures regular Nick Glennie-Smith to provide music primarily performed on Zimmer's Fairlight CMI synthesizer and steel drums. The score also features pan pipes and female vocals of a gospel tone as the anchors of its two disparate personalities. More important than the instrumentation, however, as was often the case for Zimmer at this time, is the sense of style that the composer brought to the film. An abundance of style is indeed what has kept this score so popular for so long. When attempting to capture the essence of Rain Man, Zimmer made a conscious effort to keep the score both personable and quirky. "It was a road movie, and road movies usually have gangly guitars or a bunch of strings," he recalled much later. "I kept thinking, 'don't be bigger than the characters. Try to keep it contained.' The Raymond character [Hoffman] doesn't actually know where he is. The world is so different to him. He might as well be on Mars. So, why don't we just invent our own world music for a world that doesn't really exist?" As a result, Zimmer wrote a score that concentrates on propelling the film's sense of movement while defying a genre as much as it crosses cultural boundaries. It moves with a slight hint of the rhythm and keyboarding that would develop into his reggae style for Cool Runnings. The affable combination of soothing keyboarding and percussion would translate directly into his True Romance adaptation work and others. The exotic sound of Rain Man ranges from the plucked, oriental tones that later informed Black Rain and Beyond Rangoon to the gorgeous pan pipes that evolved through several Zimmer scores until reaching their maturation in The Lion King. The wild gospel vocal accents for the Las Vegas scenes are best emulated by portions of Point of No Return. The varied combination of synthetic and real percussion was a precursor to The Power of One. Some of these sounds actually grew out of A World Apart, but as any serious Zimmer collector will know, the majority of his music from 1989 to 1994 has some connection back to Rain Man.

The only usually-present element in Zimmer's highly recognizable music of the period that doesn't have any major role in this score is the electric guitar, which traces instead (in the mainstream, at least) to Black Rain. The attractive aspect of this score is not only the intriguing combination of sounds for both lead personalities, but also the simple and pretty demeanor of the main theme for Hoffman's character. Cruise's more flamboyant persona is afforded its only real spark of life in the slightly-rock inspired Las Vegas cue (with early ensemble choral hints as well), but the score concentrates mostly on the older brother's unusual journey. The rhythms and progressions in the theme are contemporary enough to cover both characters, and the only truly odd foreign sound to be heard (in early cues, naturally) is an Australian didgeridoo effect. While Zimmer's main theme on pan pipes is best remembered by its accompaniment of the hip, keyboarded rhythms, the idea is most beautiful when conveyed on its own or with slight secondary motifs, such as the oriental idea that would later sneak into Toys, strangely enough. The first half of the score often explores soft variations on the main theme with satisfyingly relaxing results. The latter portions present Zimmer's fledgling suspense material, with "Smoke Alarm" offering the most challenging moment in the work. There isn't a tremendous amount of score material in Rain Man, but Zimmer's contribution certainly deserved more than just eleven minutes on the original, commercial soundtrack release. The first of Zimmer's two cues on that product combines some of the more compelling and soft, thematic portions from the first half of the film. The second cue merges the snazzy, roaring Las Vegas cue (in a different mix from what was heard in the film) with a return to the lovely theme for the closing credits. For any true fan of either Rain Man or Zimmer's career, however, there are too many variations on the main theme left off that ubiquitous product. Several bootlegs sprouted up in the late 1990's, eventually supplanted by one leaking of the recording sessions that reached over 48 minutes in length. This collection of cues isn't particularly well edited and is padded by some alternate takes, recordings of the pan pipes or vocal tracks alone, or dialogue (with profanity; can you imagine!) between Zimmer and Glennie-Smith in the studio.

Muffled sound quality remained a major issue throughout the history of the score on its bootleg arrangements. In late 2010, enthusiasts of the composer rejoiced in the news that Rain Man was to be legitimately released by Perseverance Records in a limited 2,000-copy pressing. That product contained the complete score minus some of the aforementioned padding on the bootlegs. Despite producer Robin Esterhammer's best efforts, however, this album likewise suffered from the lack of acceptable source tapes. Even after some cleaning of the analog source (which is recognized as being "really crappy" right on the packaging), the presentation sounds only slightly superior to that of the bootlegs, with distortion associated with bloated gain levels a problem throughout. Audiophiles were appropriately horrified, and the album existed as a source of almost humorous, widespread ridicule in film music forums for years. It was a bit odd, in fact, to figure that the assembly of the Perseverance album could have benefited the most by simply using the existing Capitol CD as the best available source for parts of its own product. Alas, the search for better master elements ensued, and Notefornote Music finally found superior sources at MGM and consolidated the shorter tracks into an optimum presentation in 2018 that lost the two bonus tracks of soloist recordings from the previous album (the wild pan pipes, vocals, and percussion that were side curiosities at best) but did reconstruct the original two Capitol CD suites. Finally, the sound quality on this product is comparatively immaculate, with Zimmer's somewhat wet environment preserved in the score's ethereal worldly moments. Unfortunately, the label only pressed a head-scratching 1,000 copies of the album, failing to meet lingering demand and selling out within a few weeks (except for a large quantity suspiciously sold by Amazon.com at higher prices thereafter). If you missed the 2018 release, don't bother with the 2010 Perseverance alternative as a fallback. Instead, another solution to Rain Man is to collect the majority of Zimmer's other early works as mentioned in this review; that way, you'll hear nearly every aspect of this important score in his career emulated or developed into arguably superior variations. Regardless, the spirited and optimistic main theme from Rain Man will always be a fan favorite, and the score earns a fourth star for sentimental reasons alone. There is genuine intimacy and a loving heart in this score that remains sadly absent from Zimmer's later years of ensemble mentality at Remote Control Productions.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download