We all have our favorite bands, but all those bands have that album. For Dylan fans, it's Self Portrait or anything from his godawful gospel period. Weezer devotees have Make Believe. For Neil Young, it's pretty much the entire 80s. With the possible exception of the Beatles and Radiohead, every band has made a really shitty album, or at the least a mediocre album way below the standards of the rest of its catalog.
Now, I grant this is bad music, but I'd actually prefer to listen to a bad album by a band that I love than a really good album by a band that I don't really care about. There's a quote from Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien that I like to use to explain this: "I'm interested in bands as beasts. I'm interested in U2 and the Rolling Stones and Neil Young and Crazy Horse. I love the dynamic of musicians working together and all the voodoo shit that comes with it." What he's saying (I think) is that it's one thing to enjoy music, but after a while you develop a kind of attachment to a band that goes beyond its music. You want to see how they progress artistically. You want to see how they work on the inside. You want to see where they go next and how they change.
Weezer is probably a good example of this. They arguably haven't made a good album since 1996's Pinkerton, but still have a huge following. People don't listen to Weezer because The Green Album or Make Believe are actually any good, but because they've developed a relationship with Rivers Cuomo and are interested in the band beyond its music. Sure, the new Weezer album may have a lot of really bad songs on it, but it's an interesting new direction for the band and shows artistic growth.
Bands become less like vehicles for good music and more like friends. Sometimes you have to suffer through some boredom and frustration, but you do it because you actually have something invested in this friend and are interested to watch them progress through their artistic life. Just like I'd rather have a sort of boring time with an old friend than a mildly interesting time with a complete stranger, I'd rather listen to a shitty Dylan album than a great album by someone who I've heard is good but have never cared about. This isn't for everyone: it takes a certain kind combination of audiophile and hipster bastard to truly appreciate bad music made by good artists (think High Fidelity). And just like there are people who prefer to have a ton of casual acquaintances than a few really good friends, I'm sure there are people who wouldn't listen to Slow Train Coming no matter how much they loved Blood on the Tracks. Of course, there are some limits to this friendship: just like it's generally unforgivable to fuck your friend's wife, there's really no good reason to listen to Neil Young's Trans. And a band doesn't necessarily have to make bad albums to be artistically interesting (again, see Radiohead).
Anyone can listen to a band's best album and enjoy it, but it's listening to the worst that really lets you see the band for what it is. It may not be "good," but it's certainly interesting.
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