Error during install of MySQL on 18.04

Question

Not sure what I'm doing wrong; I've tried just about everything (purging, manually deleting, installing from MySQL APT repos) - always get this same error. Please help!

$ sudo apt install mysql-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  mysql-client-5.7 mysql-client-core-5.7 mysql-common mysql-server-5.7 mysql-server-core-5.7
Suggested packages:
  mailx tinyca
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  mysql-client-5.7 mysql-client-core-5.7 mysql-common mysql-server mysql-server-5.7 mysql-server-core-5.7
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/19.0 MB of archives.
After this operation, 155 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-common.
(Reading database ... 307086 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mysql-common_5.8+1.0.4_all.deb ...
Unpacking mysql-common (5.8+1.0.4) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-client-core-5.7.
Preparing to unpack .../mysql-client-core-5.7_5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mysql-client-core-5.7 (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-client-5.7.
Preparing to unpack .../mysql-client-5.7_5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mysql-client-5.7 (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-server-core-5.7.
Preparing to unpack .../mysql-server-core-5.7_5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mysql-server-core-5.7 (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
Setting up mysql-common (5.8+1.0.4) ...
update-alternatives: using /etc/mysql/my.cnf.fallback to provide /etc/mysql/my.cnf (my.cnf) in auto mode
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-server-5.7.
(Reading database ... 307242 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mysql-server-5.7_5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mysql-server-5.7 (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-server.
Preparing to unpack .../mysql-server_5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1_all.deb ...
Unpacking mysql-server (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
Setting up mysql-server-core-5.7 (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
Setting up mysql-client-core-5.7 (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
Setting up mysql-client-5.7 (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
Setting up mysql-server-5.7 (5.7.31-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) ...
update-alternatives: using /etc/mysql/mysql.cnf to provide /etc/mysql/my.cnf (my.cnf) in auto mode
Renaming removed key_buffer and myisam-recover options (if present)
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/mysql.service → /lib/systemd/system/mysql.service.
Job for mysql.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status mysql.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
● mysql.service - MySQL Community Server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mysql.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2020-07-31 15:51:17 EDT; 11ms ago
  Process: 10391 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/mysqld --daemonize --pid-file=/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
  Process: 10382 ExecStartPre=/usr/share/mysql/mysql-systemd-start pre (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Jul 31 15:51:17 trinity systemd[1]: mysql.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Jul 31 15:51:17 trinity systemd[1]: mysql.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Jul 31 15:51:17 trinity systemd[1]: Stopped MySQL Community Server.
Jul 31 15:51:17 trinity systemd[1]: Starting MySQL Community Server...
dpkg: error processing package mysql-server-5.7 (--configure):
 installed mysql-server-5.7 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
                                                                                                          dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
 mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.7; however:
  Package mysql-server-5.7 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing package mysql-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for systemd (237-3ubuntu10.42) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2ubuntu0.1) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-21) ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mysql-server-5.7
 mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)