Amarok only requires KDElibs, none of the other KDE stuff. So you have to have KDElibs installed properly (including all the binaries that come with it, as Amarok needs some of these to find plugins and for the script plugins). We have written an entry for how to compile a minimal KDElibs, which you may find useful.

For some features to work correctly, such as the on-screen display, require your window manager to support the relevant freedesktop.org standards. So GNOME will work well, but fluxbox will have some trouble. We are committed to supporting Amarok on all platforms. We use KDElibs and Qt because they provide an excellent development environment.