'Idol' Judges 'Know' No Love for Testone Wednesday

Mount Pleasant resident Elise Testone wanted to know what love was from "American Idol" judges Wednesday, but instead, she was faced with poor reviews.

The Top 8 contestants in the FOX singing competition were asked to choose songs from the 1980s and Testone performed "I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner. Testone shared with guest mentors Gwen Stefani and Tony Kanal, bassist for No Doubt, that she was "going back and forth between a million songs" before choosing the Foreigner song.

Judges Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson seemed to think she made the wrong choice. Tyler said he loves Testone's voice, but he did not feel that the song was appropriate for her, although he did acknowledge the difficulty of singing it.

"It's an '80s song, and that's for sure, and '80s songs are '80s songs, but, uh, yea," he said.

Read previous Patch coverage of Testone.

Jackson said he felt Testone did not hit the right pitch.

"What technically happened for you, you never quite hit the pitch right, so it was pitchy the whole song until the very end because you were just underneath the pitch every time," Jackson said.

Jennifer Lopez, on the other hand, praised Testone for the way her style has evolved over the course of the season and said she was pleased with the performance because of what Testone put into it.

"You have a powerhouse voice, which means you can sing everything," she said. "I think what they heard was it wasn't totally right every single moment and that's all it was, but you still sounded beautiful to me and I felt your emotion and I felt how much heart you put into it and it was a really great performance on that level."

Later in the show, however, when Testone sang a duet with Phillip Phillips, Jackson was impressed.

"Elise, welcome back, baby," he said.

Testone, a music school voice coach in Mount Pleasant, has sung on Charleston's live music scene for years. The 28-year-old New Jersey native is a Coastal Carolina University graduate.

Will Testone be safe for another week in the competition? Stay tuned to Mount Pleasant Patch after Thursday night's results episode airing at 8 p.m.